The ocean is really crowded. With viruses. In a cubic millimeter of water, about 10 million viruses can be found , and it turns out they have friends that science has not known before. In a new study, scientists found that an unknown family of viruses that dominated the ocean can not be detected by standard laboratory tests. Scientists suspect this viral crowd may already exist outside the water and perhaps even in ourselves.
"We do not think new viruses are specific to the ocean alone," said MIT's microbiologist Martin Poltz. He and his team have analyzed water that has been collected for three months from the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts. And what they found inside was remarkable not with what it contained, but with what was not. According to science, the most abundant viruses on the planet are double-stranded DNA viruses, of which the tail-tail variance is the most common. Their mysterious safe cousins are far less well-known, mainly because their biological characteristics are not captured by standard laboratory tests. But that does not mean they can not be detected. Of the 200 viruses infected with a culture of common marine bacteria, 18 have emerged from a new, unknown family of saferDNA viruses. Scientists hope the discovery will help them to find the missing link in the evolution of viruses.