Huge viruses discovered!!!
In July 2013 French scientists announced the discovery of a new type of virus, dubbed Pandoravirus. The larger of the two species of Pandoravirus was discovered in seawater from the Chilean coast, whilst the slightly smaller was discovered in a freshwater pond in Australia’s own Latrobe University.
The new viruses are much bigger than your average virus, measuring 1 micrometre (a thousandth of a millimetre) in length and 0.5 micrometres across. This makes them twice as large as the previous record holder, Megavirus, and able to be observed under a standard light microscope.
But wait, there’s more. The DNA of Pandoravirus is about 93% unique. 93%!!! That’s crazy. The amount of difference in DNA is an indication of how closely or distantly related two organisms are. The DNA variance within humans is about 0.1%. Between humans and chimpanzees, about 1.2%. Humans and gorillas, 1.6%. The greater the difference in DNA, the less related the two organisms are. Humans share 50% of the same DNA as banana trees. For the newly discovered Pandora virus to have an incredible 93% unique DNA not found in any other organism on the planet – that’s astonishing.
Now think back to your high school biology lesson on classification. King Phillip cut off Fred’s green shoes. Remember that? Or perhaps Kings play chess on fine green sand. These are both ways to remember the seven divisions of Linnaean classification of life: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and species. But above Kingdom there is actually another, Domain. The three Domains of life are Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota (we fall under the latter).
However, the DNA of the Pandoravirus is so unique that many are suggesting a fourth Domain of life is needed. So basically, rewrite all the biology textbooks. The virus was even named for Pandora’s box of goodies – which of course weren’t goodies, but all the evils of the world… And the box was actually a jar… But that’s another story!