This will be a very, very short post. As usual, I was thinking…
As I am researching planarians more than ever for a project that I’ll tell the world about soon, I realized that I have never seen any work relating planarians and viruses. I intend to write a more complete post, but for the time being, here’s what is bugging me:
Practically everywhere I look it says that every organism on earth is a target for at least a viral species. There are even viruses that infect other viruses!
(this is terribly interesting; I hope to have time to talk about it soon)
And yet, again, I have been unable to find out any information about viral planarian infections. The most I have found is a couple of papers that report viral-like DNA sequences in planarian genes, not current infections… Hmmm… Processing, processing….
What are you hiding, little guy; what can you teach us?
I didn’t know what planarians were until you used the word, and now goofle has told me what they are.
You’re the man who talks to the flatworms! I like that in a scientist.
Thank you!!! In a sense, I do talk to them when I do my experiments…. These little guys are awesome!
I never would have considered whether or not planarians could viruses! I look forward to your longer post!
Thank you! Yes, that is very intriguing. I did ask a virologist in my work about that and he has never heard anything about that either… Let’s see what I find when I look at the scientific literature! (:-)
A virus that infects planarians would be awesome because no one has created a transgenic planarian, but only because they defy any attempt to take up DNA.
Indeed, although I am not familiar with any attempts to create a transgenic planarian line; that’s an intriguing possibility. Thank you for reading the blog and for your comment!