I previously discussed the idea that new human virus infections will continue to emerge from animal hosts. Stephen Morse, my colleague here at Columbia, has called this collection of viruses the 'zoonotic pool'. How many viruses are in this pool? Here are Dr. Morse's calculations: assume that there are 50,000 ...

I just heard President Obama, in his inaugural address, say the words "We will restore science to its rightful place". What does he mean by this? In "The Audacity of Hope", the book President Obama wrote in 2006 to set forth his thoughts on "reclaiming the American dream", he suggests ...

The oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), which has been used to eradicate poliomyelitis in much of the world, was developed by Dr. Albert Sabin during the 1940s and 1950s. This live virus vaccine was produced by passing the three poliovirus serotypes in various cell cultures and searching for variants with reduced ...

Vincent and Jeremy recorded TWiV #16 in Saanen, Switzerland, at the 19th Challenge in Virology. They review the meeting, and discuss implications of a new HIV-1 sequence from 1960 for the origin of AIDS. Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #16

In my recent post about why I blog and podcast, I discussed how these activities allow me to think more about virology and to teach far more people than I ever could in a laboratory or classroom. Is there even more value in the web for scientists? There are three ...