In 2003, Jean-Michel Claverie made a discovery in bacterial genomics that would change his career trajectory and begin a new era in microbiology. “One day, we found a very strange beast that nobody ...

This article was produced in collaboration with The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization. A new year might mean new viral threats. Old viruses are constantly evolving. A warming and ...

Some viral realms infect only specific groups of organisms, which suggests they arose after certain branches of life had already evolved, rather than dating all the way back to LUCA. For instance, ...

Some viruses mutate more rapidly than others. Learn more about why that is and what that means for your health. Have you ever wondered why you have to get a flu shot every year, but some vaccines are ...

Microbiologists Patrick Moreira and Purificación López-García, together with virologists Arturo Ludmir and Lynn Enquist, are at the center of a sharp debate over whether viruses count as living ...

What is a virus? It is a small segment of genetic material, DNA or RNA, enclosed in a protein envelope. It is neither dead nor alive. It simply exists. Viruses are everywhere. For example, a ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Artificial intelligence has helped scientists create entirely new ...

A petri dish full of dead bacteria isn’t usually cause for celebration. But for Stanford’s Brian Hie it was a game-changer in his efforts to create synthetic life. The perpetrator was a type of virus ...