Insight Ancient virus discovered in melting Arctic ice This particular giant virus won’t kill you, but climate change means that something deadly could one day emerge.

As Canada enters flu season, it may seem difficult to care about any other virus, least of all a virus found in 700-year-old frozen caribou dung. But the latter virus, just recently unearthed in the ...

A new study has revealed that "junk DNA" descended from ancient viruses could play a key role in controlling genes.

A new approach to analysis traced the viral DNA across evolution to identify its positions in our genome and understand its ...

A pair of lungs preserved over a century ago from a deceased Spanish flu patient has helped unravel the genetic adaptations undergone by the virus to spread across Europe during the start of the 1918 ...

The viruses that kill bacteria may be our best bet against antibiotic resistance – if we can understand how they win.

But here’s the bad news: It’s not the first ancient virus that scientists have found frozen — it’s the fourth found since 2003. And you can be sure it won’t be the last.

The team found 12 ancient hepatitis B genomes, including a now-extinct type of the virus. To get the genetic sequences, the researchers had to do the molecular equivalent of a dumpster dive.

Scientists in Switzerland have cracked open a century-old viral mystery by decoding the genome of the 1918 influenza virus.

The study focuses on an ancient virus known as HERV-T, which began infecting primates some 32 to 43 million years ago. HERV-T is a retrovirus (just like HIV), which means it carried its genetic ...

The giant virus obtained from Siberian permafrost was frozen for 30,000 years, but was able to infect an amoeba when it was revived. (Image courtesy of Julia Bartoli and Chantal Abergel, IGS and ...