blauw67
blauw67 t1_irzr2v8 wrote
Reply to "New antibiotic hiding in diseased potatoes thwarts fungal infections in plants and humans" by tonymmorley
That's not an antibiotic, that's a fungicide, which you know, is still amazing news, just the wrong word for it. But I guess it gives the discovery the hype it deserves.
blauw67 t1_jbnlg26 wrote
Reply to I just learned that the known shortest DNA in an “organism” is about 1700 base pairs in a certain virus. Is there a minimum amount of “code” required for an organism (or virus) to function in any capacity? by mcbergstedt
There's actually viroids, Virus like "Organisms" that infect only flowering plants. They are basically free floating pieces of genetic material without a protein shell. Avsunviroid seems to be one of the smallest with only 246 nucleotides.