An 'Unimaginable' Virus Named Gorgon Was Found Buried in a Massachusetts Forest

 An 'Unimaginable' Virus Named Gorgon Was Found Buried in a Massachusetts Forest

Back in 2018, scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI) made an unexpected discovery in Harvard Forest—a roughly six-square-mile area west of Boston. While trying to understand how microbes reacted to warming soil due to climate change, the researchers stumbled upon a collection of “giant” viruses many times larger than typical viral specimens.

How big, you ask? Well, where viruses—like Covid-19, for example—might measure anywhere from 50 to 140 nanometers in width, the discoveries from Harvard Forest measured up to 635 nanometers.