Giant, ancient viruses are thawing out in Siberia - and they're changing everything we thought we knew about them - Yahoo Finance - 0 views
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Lottie Peppers on 14 Oct 15Last month, researchers announced they were studying a 30,000-year-old giant virus called Mollivirus sibericum that they found in melted Siberian permafrost. The virus was functional and able to infect amoeba. This isn't the first time researchers have found big viruses that have challenged what we thought we knew about the tiny invaders. Mimivirus, discovered in 2003, has 1,200 genes and is twice the width of traditional viruses.