Phages Caught Sending Chemical Messages

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Do You Speak Virus? Phages Caught Sending Chemical Messages

The discovery—in viruses that attack Bacillus bacteria—marks the first time that any type of viral communication system has ever been found. But researchers say that many other viruses could communicate with each other through their own molecular languages—perhaps even viruses that are responsible for human diseases. If that is the case, scientists might have found a new way to disrupt viral attacks. The secret viral code was spotted by a team led by Rotem Sorek, a microbial geneticist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Their findings are published in Nature on January 18.

Read more: Scientific American