Because they rely on hosts for a majority of functions, viruses aren’t considered alive. But entities like this one complicate matters.

Properly deciphering the branching pathways of evolution could unlock the history of every component of natural biology.

Zika, the mosquito-borne virus linked to miscarriage and severe microcephaly in the fetuses of infected women, just lost a little bit of its edge to researchers. On Thursday, a Purdue University team ...

All species on Earth, both living and extinct, are related. We know this because of a biological tool called the tree of life. This "tree" takes the form of a diagram that maps the relationships ...

Researchers recently discovered that a virus, FloV-SA2, encodes one of the proteins needed to make ribosomes, the central engines in all cells that translate genetic information into proteins, the ...

New research has uncovered a social world of viruses full of cheating, cooperation and other intrigues, suggesting that viruses make sense only as members of a community. Ever since viruses came to ...

Viruses typically aren’t considered ‘alive,’ as many core biological functions are outsourced to their hosts. But a newly discovered organism appears to straddle the line between virus and cell. Like ...