A Huge Discovery in the World of Viruses

A Huge Discovery in the World of Viruses

Why are they 10 times bigger than other phages? “They’re in our saliva, and in our gut,” says Jill Banfield of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the team that discovered the new phages. From what Banfield and her team have been able to tell, though, these giants defy some fundamental ideas about how viruses usually work.