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phages

Of 70,000 hitherto unknown viruses in the human gut, over 40% of proteins had no clear function

The reader comments that viruses cannot afford to carry around much non-functioning nucleic acid. More likely, the 43% that are mystery proteins do have a function. If even viruses are much more complex than we expect, what chance that all these complex systems arose by natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism)? Read More ›

Viruses called phages, researchers say, are in a grey zone between life and non-life

Researcher: "Typically, what separates life from non-life is to have ribosomes and the ability to do translation; that is one of the major defining features that separate viruses and bacteria, non-life and life," Sachdeva said. "Some large phages have a lot of this translational machinery, so they are blurring the line a bit." Read More ›