Viruses are the most diverse and abundant biological entities: they are widely known, fast-evolving, and have adapted to be able to infect all life forms. Despite this, their origin and evolutionary ...

In the early, uncertain days of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists delivered one comforting pronouncement: The virus that caused COVID mutates rather slowly. If that remained true, the virus would ...

Environmental conditions are an important factor driving pathogens’ evolution. Here, we explore the effects of drought stress in plant virus evolution. We evolved turnip mosaic potyvirus in ...

The SIRSVIDE model developed by Professor Jian Lu's research group provides a comprehensive framework for studying viral epidemiology and evolutionary dynamics. The simulation results reveal that ...

It’s flu season. You’ve probably already gotten your annual flu shot, perhaps coupled with another COVID-19 booster. For viruses like influenza that causes the flu, updated vaccines are required each ...

Most of us have had to take a few days off work or school because of the flu or COVID-19. But imagine being sick with COVID, ...

Scientists at the University of Vienna, Austria, have screened great ape specimens obtained from natural history museums to identify DNA viruses. This groundbreaking study provides unique insights ...

Rather than a slow, gradual process as Darwin envisioned, biologists can now see how evolutionary changes unfold on much more accelerated timescales. Using an accelerated arms race between bacteria ...

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Oxford have developed an artificial intelligence tool called EVEscape that can predict how a virus will evolve to become a new variant, ...

A new study has shown that person-to-person variation in antibody immunity plays a key role in shaping which influenza (flu) strains dominate in a population. The work, published today as a Reviewed ...