#virology — Public Fediverse posts

Medieval manuscripts are biological time capsules: ancient sheeppox DNA survives in parchment across libraries worldwide
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/medieval-manuscripts-are-biological-time-capsules-for-deadly-sheeppox-virus/
Other archives and libraries around the world may also contain genetic traces of past disease outbreaks.
#science #archaeology #virology

Medieval manuscripts are biological time capsules: ancient sheeppox DNA survives in parchment across libraries worldwide
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/medieval-manuscripts-are-biological-time-capsules-for-deadly-sheeppox-virus/
Other archives and libraries around the world may also contain genetic traces of past disease outbreaks.
#science #archaeology #virology

Other archives and libraries around the world may also contain genetic traces of past disease outbreaks. #science #archaeology #virology

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/medieval-manuscripts-are-biological-time-capsules-for-deadly-sheeppox-virus/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into FLIPBOARD EXCHANGE FEED 🗞️ @flipboard-exchange-feed-Econopass

Other archives and libraries around the world may also contain genetic traces of past disease outbreaks. #science #archaeology #virology

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/medieval-manuscripts-are-biological-time-capsules-for-deadly-sheeppox-virus/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into FLIPBOARD EXCHANGE FEED 🗞️ @flipboard-exchange-feed-Econopass

Other archives and libraries around the world may also contain genetic traces of past disease outbreaks. #science #archaeology #virology

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/medieval-manuscripts-are-biological-time-capsules-for-deadly-sheeppox-virus/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into FLIPBOARD EXCHANGE FEED 🗞️ @flipboard-exchange-feed-Econopass

Other archives and libraries around the world may also contain genetic traces of past disease outbreaks. #science #archaeology #virology

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/medieval-manuscripts-are-biological-time-capsules-for-deadly-sheeppox-virus/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into FLIPBOARD EXCHANGE FEED 🗞️ @flipboard-exchange-feed-Econopass

Current advances in the development of #NipahVirus vaccines

#OpenAccess #NiV #zoonosis #Nipah #microbiology #virology https://davidojcius.blogspot.com/2026/07/current-advances-in-development-of.html

The giant viruses that orchestrate life in the polar regions
#Science #Environment #ClimateChange #Arctic #Antarctica #PolarRegions #GiantViruses #Virology #Microbiology #DNA #Ecology #Biodiversity #GlobalWarming #Parasites #ArcticOcean #PolarIce #Viruses
https://the-14.com/the-giant-viruses-that-orchestrate-life-in-the-polar-regions/

Identifying Environmental Risk Factors and Mapping the Distribution of West Nile Virus in an Endemic Region of North America
--
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GH000161 <-- shared paper
--
[an older paper (2018) but a good one, including showing the versatility & usefulness of #FedScience spatial datasets]
#GIS #spatial #mapping #USA #WestNile #WestNileVirus #fedscience #NationalLandCoverDatabase #NLCD #virus #publichealth #arboviruses #environment #data #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #fedscience #geocoding #environmental #landcover #physiography #climate #weather #transmission #model #regressiontree #risk #hazard #riskmaps #elevation #humidity #rainfall #precipitation #disease #soil #integrated #opendata #mosquito #satellite #SouthDakota #pasturelands #crossdiscipline #virology #remotesensing #earthobservation #Pathobiology #Epidemiology
@USGS @USGS_EROS

Another interesting study suggesting that giant viruses can control phototaxis in their hosts during infection

"Hijacking of internal calcium dynamics by intracellularly residing viral rhodopsins"

"... we show here that light irradiation reversibly modified tail movements of OLPVR1-expressing frog tadpoles."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44548-6

#viruses #GiantViruses #virology

Gene duplication as a major force driving the genome expansion in some giant viruses

https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/jvi.01309-23

#GiantViruses #viruses #virology #genomics

Latest taxonomic update for giant viruses, including a new name for the famous mimivirus (now Mimivirus bradfordmassiliense)

Taxonomy for the titans of the virosphere!

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-023-05906-3

#GiantViruses #viruses #virology

#GiantViruses encode many strange genes in their genomes - partial TCA cycles, actins and myosins, nutrient transporters, etc

What are they doing with all of these crazy genes?

We discuss this in a recent article - big thanks to all of the collaborators who were willing to help write an extensive review!

Virologs, viral mimicry, and #virocell metabolism: the expanding scale of cellular functions encoded in the complex genomes of giant #viruses 

https://academic.oup.com/femsre/article/47/5/fuad053/7280998?login=false

#virology

Virophages are viruses that infect giant viruses, typically resulting in a lower burst size for the giant virus. In our latest preprint we report virophage-like sequences associated with insect poxviruses.

Their genomes of these elements are really interesting. This also opens up the possibility that hyperparasitic viruses are associated with a much broader range of DNA viruses than is commonly thought.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.16.562556

#viruses #virology #poxviruses #GiantViruses

Nice study on polar giant viruses!

Genomic adaptation of giant viruses in polar oceans

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41910-6

#viruses #GiantViruses #virology #oceanography #marine #ocean #polar

It's been a big mystery why giant viruses encode so many proteins involved in vesicular transport and cytoskeletal dynamics. This interesting paper examined a dynamin homolog and found evidence that it's involved in mitochondrial membrane remodelling during infection.

A Novel Group of Dynamin-Related Proteins Shared by Eukaryotes and Giant Viruses Is Able to Remodel Mitochondria From Within the Matrix

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/40/6/msad134/7190697?login=false

#viruses #GiantViruses #virology

Link between herpesviruses and giant viruses no longer missing - Enlarge / Electron micrograph of herpesviruses. (credit: Callista Image... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1934235 #giantviruses #evolution #genomics #virology #science #biology #herpes

Important study describing a new phylum of herpesvirus relatives that is abundant in the ocean -

Mirusviruses link herpesviruses to giant viruses

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05962-4

I was honored to be asked to review this paper! Wonderful work.

#virology #viruses #herpesviruses #giantViruses

Near-atomic architecture of Singapore grouper iridovirus and implications for giant virus assembly

"The viral inner membrane-integrated anchor protein colocalizes with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), supporting the hypothesis that the biogenesis of the inner membrane is associated with the ER"

Nice confirmation about where the viral inner membrane comes from.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37681-9

#viruses #giantViruses #virology

A subset of white #blood #cells, known as #myeloid cells, can harbor #HIV in people who have been virally suppressed for years on #antiretroviral therapy, according to findings from a small study supported by the National Institutes of Health.
#Virology #Microbiology #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2023/03/vi03272301.html

Important recent study on #GiantViruses.

I was always curious why genomes of giant viruses encode so many capsid proteins- turns out they are used in many complex modifications on the capsid surface. What amazing complexity of virion structure!

"Near-atomic, non-icosahedrally averaged structure of giant virus Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus 1"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34218-4

#viruses #virology

Happy to share our latest work on marine giant viruses!

Diversity and genomics of giant viruses in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1021923/full

#Marine #GiantViruses #Viruses #Virology