I was at the dentist's office today and I saw the latest issue of Discover magazine. I've always liked the paper version of Discover, and while it's definitely on the pop-sci side of science journalism, they manage cover things that I might otherwise not hear about. Take for example, the mimivirus, a giant virus with more than a thousand genes. This discovery was published in Science in 2003, but I was completely unaware of it. This article also made me aware of the Archaea for the first time. I'm realizing now that my high school biology books must have been really old -- they classified by the 5 kingdoms (Monera, Protista, Plantae, Animalia and Fungi) rather than the 3 kingdom method.
It's looking like some viruses may soon be classified as life, which may make some biology teachers need to update their tests. In every biology class I ever took, I always got a question which looked like this:
Which of the following is not classified as living?
A. HIV.
B. Chicken Pox.
C. Ebola.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
I need to upgrade to the '06 version of Biology. I think I'm still running Biology '93.
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