We know that bacteriophages are viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria. We know that they are the most abundant organisms on Earth. But we don’t know much about their genetic architecture.
A team of professional scholars and budding scientists–chiefly college freshmen–have joined forces under the aegis of SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science), which is run jointly by the University of Pittsburgh and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, to study the little-known genetics of bacteriophages. In a new paper recently published in the journal eLife, the authors show that phages do not form discrete populations as previously suggested but are rampantly exchanging genes with each other to generate a broad spectrum of genetic diversity, albeit with some types being a lot more prevalent than others.
Of the nearly 3,000 authors, 2,664 were students from among 81 colleges and universities that participate in the SEA-PHAGES undergraduate science program, created by Pitt’s Graham Hatfull and colleagues and funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This paper is believed to have the second-highest number in history of authors on a scientific paper, trailing only that which describes the discovery of the Higgs boson. That paper has more than 6,000 authors.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150511114422.htm
[Abstract]: http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e06416
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:04PM
wow this is starting so sound that there aren't really many different bacteria and virus but it's like one huge monster "elephant-foot kindda blind people looking" ...errr... organism ... like a a squishy soft blanket like blob that is one and covers the whole planet surface?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:13PM
Bacteriophages where widely used in soviet Russia (cf. 1997 Horizon episode entitle "The virus that cures" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage#cite_note-horizon-4) [wikipedia.org] as an alternative to antibiotics and quite successfully actually. A lot of that knowledge (on bacteriophages) was lost when the SU collapsed and the subsequent virus 'cultures' could no longer be maintained.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:16PM
But in Soviet Russia, bacteriophages study YOU!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @04:52PM
Phage therapy is unfortunately too specific to be useful for most infections. There isn't a broad-spectrum phage therapy and bacteria are not often eliminated with phage therapy because bacteria can quickly develop resistance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR). Further complicating treatment is that the human immune system will inactivate phage in the bloodstream, so phage therapy would be mostly limited to skin or GI tract infections.
(Score: 1) by chucky on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:08PM
The article http://www.reflex.cz/clanek/zajimavosti/58556/exkluzivni-reportaz-vrazi-v-roli-zachrancu.html [reflex.cz] - well, you may have hard time reading it - states that the most important virus strains were exported from SU to Germany, namely Leibnitz Institute in Braunschweig. This is from one hospital which specialised in this type of work, but others may be there too.
(Score: 1) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:09PM
I understand that science is a collaborative field but when you have almost 3000 authors of a paper, how much value is there still in 'also' having you name in that list? I guess the list of authors is longer than the actual paper.
Publish or perish indeed... "I'll get my name on absolutely anything and everything!"
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:13PM
Or, you know, they're trying to contribute to an important project and the name on the paper is only a small career consideration next to supporting a major backbone study in their field that will be used for generations.
(Score: 1) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:19PM
I get that and I think learning more about bacteriophages would be good for humanity; but let me ask the question in another way: how much did each 'author' contribute to the paper and what is the threshold for one's name to be included as an author? Could I have my name included as well? I saw a documentary on bacteriophages once...
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:33PM
The paper was a collation of various distinct bacteriophage genome sequencings with information from each author about the particulars of each studied phage. Presumably every author was responsible for characterizing their own previous research so that there is context to the sequences they've got stored.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:08PM
Most of the authors seem to be students that participated in a high school or college class that isolated bacteriophage from various areas, then sent the bacteriophage to be sequenced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:18PM
LOL!
Somebody (you!) has clearly never worked in academia, or even just worked with academics.
You wouldn't have written what you just wrote if you knew how academia and academics really work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:50PM
The vast majority are undergraduates. Publish or perish does not apply. They were simply doing a small fraction of the overall work through other course assignments, then submitting the work to be included as a paper greater than the sum of its parts.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @10:11PM
Which is a reason they shouldn't have been given co-authorship but rather mention in the acknowledgements section. Giving them all authorship in this case is the academic equivalent of giving them all participation trophies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:10AM
Being published in a journal as a primary author is more often than not just a participation trophy too. Rarely does any paper get much readership unless there is a fad within the subject scope. Sure it is a real downer to spend hundreds of hours on a paper knowing full well that maybe a dozen people will read it after publishing, but that is the way journals go.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 12 2015, @11:27PM
I understand that science is a collaborative field but when you have almost 3000 authors of a paper, how much value is there still in 'also' having you name in that list?
It's a standard tradition. If you contribute to a paper or the research it presents, you get your name on the paper. And I suspect this paper represents a number of man years of research on the part of the authors. The publish and perish aspect rather is that they might publish a number of papers with this author list rather than one or two more definitive papers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:13PM
With that many contributing authors, who would be responsible if some of the data is fraudulent? Most journals have a clause that requires all authors to be responsible for what is published and I'm sure that most of the authors do not sufficiently understand the data or analysis to truthfully agree to those conditions.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:30PM
... it seems that there would be no room in the article for the content! Why haven't I thought of that? I could publish articles in a physics journal using the contents of a phone book.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:41AM
... phages cured infectious disease.
This because the West kept antibiotics away from the Communist Bloc. I was appalled when I found that out, as my life has been saved more than once by antibiotics - the west was killing soviet children because we wanted to have a military advantage over them.
In response, the soviets developed phages. While they are largely out of still now, given that they can import antibiotics, as well as have access to whatever it takes to develop their own, they still do have stockpiles of phases, and use them when antibiotics don't work.
That antibiotic resistance is growing is quite disturbing to me, as a doctor told my mother, in my plain sight, that he was prescribing the last antibiotic available, and that if I got that same throat infection again, my throat would swell shut so I could not breathe. I expect I would have been spared by a tracheotomy, but then that would have made it hard to get laid.
While phages are known in the west, they aren't used, one has to travel to Georgia to get them. To the best of my knowledge they aren't licensed by the FDA, but they could be were someone to conduct the required studies.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:57AM
Seriously, how are you supposed to fit that list of authors in the references?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:15AM
First listed author last name, first name, et al. then the usual title publisher and so on.
That easy. Every academic writing format uses et al. or a version of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:46AM
That's true only for the main text, not the references/bibliography/works cited section. You must provide a full biblio entry, at least for all journals I'm aware of.