A new virus-like entity has just been discovered – ‘obelisks’ explained

"The new preprint describes “viroid-like colonists of human microbiomes”. If “viroid-like” sounds non-committal, that is entirely deliberate. The newly discovered biological entity falls somewhere between viruses and viroids.

In fact, the name obelisks was proposed not only because of their shape, but also to provide wiggle room in case they turn out to be more like RNA plasmids (a different type of genetic element that resides inside bacteria) than either viruses or viroids."

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A new virus-like entity has just been discovered – ‘obelisks’ explained 

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