{"664809":{"#nid":"664809","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Virivores, the organism can eat up to a million viruses a day","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile the term doesn\u0026rsquo;t officially exist yet, a group of American researchers have discovered two groups of microorganisms that are neither animals, nor plants,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/english.elpais.com\/science-tech\/2022-10-29\/video-we-are-not-prepared-for-a-fungal-pandemic-19-deadly-species-worrying-the-who.html\u0022\u003Enor fungi\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026ndash; but neither are they simple bacteria. While they are not the first virus-eating organisms to have been identified, they are apparently able to survive and thrive exclusively by feeding on viral material. The researchers\u0026nbsp;have been studying viruses from a different perspective: not as pathogenic biological entities, but rather, as basic nutrients in the life cycle. One of those researchers is \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\/people\/joshua-weitz\u0022\u003EJoshua Weitz\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;Professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESchool of Biological Sciences,\u003C\/a\u003E Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences, and Blaise Pascal International Chair of Excellence at the Ecole Normale Superieure.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"34434","created_gmt":"2023-01-17 20:28:52","changed_gmt":"2023-01-17 20:28:52","author":"Renay San Miguel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"https:\/\/english.elpais.com\/science-tech\/2023-01-12\/carnivores-herbivores-and-virivores-this-organism-can-eat-up-to-a-million-viruses-a-day.html","dateline":{"date":"2023-01-12T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2023-01-12T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"166882","name":"School of Biological Sciences"},{"id":"11599","name":"Joshua Weitz"},{"id":"11384","name":"viruses"},{"id":"191918","name":"viral material"},{"id":"191919","name":"virus-eating organisms"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}