Viruses are smaller than bacteria. For example, at 45 nanometers (1 nanometer = 0.000001 millimeter), the hepatitis virus is approximately 40 times smaller than E.coli. By comparison, a human red ...

I’ve had it up to here with viruses lately. It’s easy in these times to wonder whether there’s anything good about them. That made me curious about why viruses exist in the first place, and where they ...

Australia’s 2025 flu season lasted weeks longer than it normally does. Hong Kong’s hit so early that the rollout of seasonal flu shots hadn’t yet started. New York has reported record-breaking flu ...

Seven kinds of virus collectively comprise an important cause of cancer, particularly in less developed countries and for people with damaged immune systems. Discovered over the past 54 years, most of ...

Although they didn’t manage to do that, they found something else: a new species of ebolavirus, the genus of viruses that cause Ebola diseases. The new virus—the sixth in the genus to be ...

Besides serving as food for certain microbes, viruses perform some helpful functions that remain poorly understood. A ciliate, a type of single-celled microbe, swims next to Sphagnum moss, amplified ...

Scientists have uncovered over 200 new giant viruses lurking in ocean waters that not only help shape marine ecosystems but also manipulate photosynthesis in algae. These massive viruses once nearly ...

The timing and origin of Zika virus (ZIKV) introduction in Brazil has been the subject of controversy. Initially, it was assumed that the virus was introduced during the FIFA World Cup in June–July ...

Scientists have more evidence, but we may never know exactly what happened. The World Health Organization and China released a long-awaited joint report into the origins of COVID-19 on Tuesday, ...