Computer viruses have been around for a long, long time -- pretty much as long as personal computing and mainstream software development -- and they've bee
This site about Shingles is intended for consumers seeking information about this potentially serious, painful disease. Anyone who has previously had chickenpox can develop Shingles.
A team of scientists captured 133 rats at various places in New York City s subways, and used DNA sequencing to catalog the pathogens they were carrying. They found an alarming number of disease causing bacteria, viruses, and protozoa, but what was most alarming was the viruses they found—18 viruses that are entirely unknown to science. The authors note that the new viruses have not been reported yet in humans, but it is possible that human infection with some of these viruses is already occurring. Because most viruses cause only mild symptoms, or symptoms very similar to other illnesses, many illnesses are misdiagnosed. A few of the viruses stand out, including a new species similar to the hepatitis C virus, and Seoul hantavirus, a dangerous disease that causes excessive bleeding, and had never been found in New York before. The study raises the question of how many more unknown viruses are lurking in rat populations around the country.
?. J. Virol., 81 (15):
8211-8224(2007)"HCV replicates as a quasispecies rather than as a clonal population. (...) The average amino acid difference between the consensus sequence and the individual quasispecies variants was 1.8%, which was smaller than the average distance between the quasispecies variants themselves (2.3%). Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the consensus sequence was either in the center or near the base of the phylogenetic tree for each HCV gene.".