Nearly 1500 new viruses discovered in China
by: JD Heyes
NaturalNews.com
Saturday, December 03, 2016
We’ve reported regularly on the sad state of environmental affairs throughout China, including its massive industrial pollution, fake organic food industry, and its contamination of soil, water and air. Now, it seems, the country has become a purulent cesspool of potential infection, as well.
As reported by IFLScience, there are about 1 trillion various species on Earth, with most of them being microbial. So there’s no question that the world really belongs to them. What’s more, scientists have only barely scratched the surface in discovering all of the species that exist on the planet.
So with that in mind, it should not surprise anyone that 1,445 new viruses have just been discovered – in China alone.
A study published by a joint Australian-Chinese team in the journal Nature identified the new collection of viruses in 220 different species of invertebrates – organisms that do not have spinal columns. This includes insects, spiders, starfish, snails, crabs and octopus, among others.
Scientists have long known that viruses are pervasive around the world. They are in every known environment and all species of animals. In fact, an ancient virus forms a whole section of our own human genetic sequence, IFLScience reported.
The recently-published study shows that despite the body of knowledge we currently have, the viral world, or “virome,” is much more diverse and detailed than scientists previously believed or understood. Indeed, the new trove of identified viruses reveals that viral evolution has taken place with remarkable speed, as there has been a great deal of gene transfer between hosts and viruses.
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