Portal:Viruses/Did you know/11


 * ...that the hairpin ribozyme (pictured) is an RNA that can encode genetic information and catalyse biological reactions?
 * ...that in the 1980s British physician John R. Seale advocated the theory that HIV might have been created in a germ warfare laboratory?
 * ...that the Visna virus, a retrovirus that causes encephalitis and chronic pneumonitis in sheep, is used as a model system for HIV infection?
 * ...that Thomas C. Peebles, who went on to isolate the measles virus strain used in the measles vaccine, was initially rejected by Harvard Medical School because he had gotten a D in college biology?
 * ...that studies in phage ecology indicate that viruses may be the most abundant organisms on Earth?