I love stuff like this - what a cool notion.

NikolaiFyodorov:

Tabloid headlines like this make me homicidal.

Dr Claverie: More than 90 per cent of the genes in this virus were previously unknown to science. We therefore believe it possible that pandoraviruses emerged from an ancestral cellular type that no longer exists.

Daily Mail: A new ancestral cellular type, you say? What about, say, an organism of alien origin? Like, for instance, from space or something? (laughs)

Dr Claverie: From space? (laughs) Well, sure, I suppose. Maybe. (shrugs)

Daily Mail: Scientists Find Giant Virus That Could Have Come From MARS!

Interesting story, nonetheless.


posted 3925 days ago