omgu8mynewt t1_jbphzq3 wrote on March 10, 2023 at 6:49 PM

Reply to comment by blacksheep998 in 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

I work with viruses, some virologist like 'genetic material replicating and closed in a membrane' which makes me laugh

omgu8mynewt t1_j81g4bj wrote on February 10, 2023 at 10:37 PM

Reply to Estimating roughly, how much of a bacterial genome is thought to be of viral origin? by josephrainer

In bacteria, dormant viruses in the genome are called prophages. I found one paper, in eight E. coli strains, between 8-22 prophages were predicted to be found in each strain's genome. E coli genome is approximately 5.6 Mb. Prophage genomes were from 5.6 to 131.9 kb, say on average 70 Kb. So on average, (14 prophages x 70,000) / 5,600,00 * 100 = 17.5%. Very back of the envolope maths, and only for E coli, results will vary wildly. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.03093/full

omgu8mynewt t1_j0lvxc6 wrote on December 17, 2022 at 5:35 PM

Reply to comment by [deleted] in How does high humidity affect perceived temperature in hot and cold environments? by MindTheReddit

Same in UK, hearing that from Norwegian and Russian colleagues. And that the summer 30C heat (not this year lol, a more normal year) feel worse than 45C in Libya because the dry heat there means sweat actually cools you down unlike here.