Portal:Viruses/Did you know/11

...that the hairpin ribozyme (pictured) is an RNA that can encode genetic information and catalyse biological reactions?
...that in the 1980s British physician John R. Seale advocated the theory that HIV might have been created in a germ warfare laboratory?
...that the Visna virus, a retrovirus that causes encephalitis and chronic pneumonitis in sheep, is used as a model system for HIV infection?
...that Thomas C. Peebles, who went on to isolate the measles virus strain used in the measles vaccine, was initially rejected by Harvard Medical School because he had gotten a D in college biology?
...that studies in phage ecology indicate that viruses may be the most abundant organisms on Earth?