Comments on: The Island of Fossil Viruses

By: Getting More Viral Every Day | The Loom | Discover Magazine

Getting More Viral Every Day | The Loom | Discover Magazine — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:03:38 +0000

[...] is a subject I’ve explored here on the Loom before (1, 2), but now is a great time to stop and take stock of just how much progress scientists have made in [...]

By: The Island of Fossil Viruses « MicrobiologyBytes

The Island of Fossil Viruses « MicrobiologyBytes — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:00:30 +0000

[...] discovermagazine.com [...]

By: Mike h

Mike h — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:47:19 +0000

Is it too late to say happy monkey?

By: Ben Capoeman

Ben Capoeman — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:20:16 +0000

One more nit-pick: Lemurs are not alone. The Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is also a primate that is only found on Madagascar. If you imagine one giving you the finger for this slight then you could segue into an entire essay on evolutionary adaptation.

By: Leo Martins

Leo Martins — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:14:19 +0000

Possibly a typo:

“But they also lacked a gene found in other lentiviruses, called vpr”

Shouldn’t it be “dUTPase” (or dUTP) instead?

By: RPM

RPM — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:12:59 +0000

Sorry to nit-pick, but:

The only primates on Madagascar are the lemurs. They represent the oldest lineage of primates alive today on Earth, having branched off from other primates about 70 million years ago.

All primate lineages are equidistant from the MRCA of the clade. What lemurs represent is the most distant primate relative of apes and monkeys.