Curious bits of DNA tucked inside genomes across all kingdoms of life historically have been disregarded since they don’t seem to have a role to play in the competition for survival. Or so researchers ...

Some viruses, like the common cold, are a flash in the pan. They infect us, our bodies fight back — which is what makes us sick — and then they’re gone, until the next variant rolls along. Other ...

Viroids are tiny strands of circular, infectious RNA. They differ from viruses in that they do not have a protective protein coat and that they do not encode any proteins of their own. They are also ...

Suddenly they appear and -- like the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus -- can trigger major epidemics: Viruses that nobody had on their radar. They are not really new, but they have changed genetically. In ...