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There are fossils of viruses, of sorts, preserved in the DNA of the hosts that they’ve infected. Including you. This molecular fossil trail can help us understand where viruses came from, how they evolved and it can even help us tackle the biggest question of all: Are viruses alive? Produced for PBS Digital Studios. Want to follow Eons elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/eonsshow Twitter - https://twitter.com/eonsshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/eonsshow/ References: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3094976/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4609113/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19270719/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096385/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758182/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3190193/ https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00679842/document http://bioinformatics.cvr.ac.uk/paleovirology/site/html/posts/2013-04-15_what_is_paleovirology.html http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/giant-viruses-found-austrian-sewage-fuel-debate-over-potential-fourth-domain-life https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/cells/viruses/a/are-viruses-dead-or-alive https://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yellowstone/viruslive.html https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-origins-of-viruses-14398218# https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/discovery-of-the-giant-mimivirus-14402410 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2976387/ https://www.nature.com/news/giant-viruses-open-pandora-s-box-1.13410 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19561090 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946954/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906475/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3179036/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/a-7000-year-old-virus-sequenced-from-a-neolithic-mans-tooth/559862/ http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/Q9P2P1 http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1001191