It took some mighty fine nets, but scientists who spent two years trawling the world's oceans for bacteria and viruses have completed the most thorough census ever of marine microbial life, revealing an astonishingly diverse and bizarre microscopic menagerie.
This is awesome. I have been waiting for the conclusion of this story since I read years ago that Craig Venter had started a new project in which he was sailing around the world in a boat collecting sea life. The paper is free to the public, so if you are at all interested, you should go and check it out. Just google PLoS Biology (which is the journal that the paper is in). Seas Yield Surprising Catch of Unknown Genes - washingtonpost.com |