The kicker is that mimivirus is fully 400nm across, and encodes over 1200 genes. that is to say, it's both significantly bigger in size and gene content than a good number of parasitic bacteria. It has enough highly conserved genes that they were able to place it on the phylogenetic tree of all life as a fourth domain branching off near the root of the eukaryotes. I love this stuff.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
2 comments:
That is pretty cool. I miss science.
Hey, man, science misses you, too. :-)
I like my job. There's no money in it, of course, but I get to toy with the very stuff of life itself!! Ha ha ha!
Sorry. Got a little carried away there. You know how it is...
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