Translate

Friday 19 July 2013

Researchers discovered the largest virus ever - Pandoravirus

                                                                                                                                           
Viruses are very small in size ranging from 5 to 300 nano-meters which is not visible in a normal microscope. Researchers now have discovered a the largest virus ever - large enough to be seen in an ordinary microscope (about 1 micrometer).

The word Pandora is from Greek mythology - the first mortal woman.


The organism was initially called NLF, for “new life form”. Researchers found it in a water sample collected off the coast of Chile, where it seemed to be infecting and killing amoebae. Under a microscope, it appeared as a large, dark spot, about the size of a small bacterial cell.



They have giant-sized genome - from 1900 to 2500 genes - way more than viruses like influenza, which has 10.


The research was published in Journal science.  

                                                                                                                                                                       
Buy

No comments:

Post a Comment