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Scientists and researchers discover new organisms almost everyday. These organisms often provide a new source of information into the world's past history, helping scientists uncover things they have never known before. One of the latest findings that scientists came across is also the largest virus they have ever encountered. This virus, which they named the Pandoravirus is not believed to be a threat to human health.   

"This is not going to cause any kind of widespread and acute illness or epidemic or anything," commented Eugene Koonin according to NPR. Koonin is an evolutionary biologist at the National Institutes of Health and specializes in viruses.

The researchers discovered the Pandoravirus after a new survey suggested that there could be giant viruses living in seawater. The team, headed by Jean-Michel Calverie of Aix-Marseille University in France, and a group of oceanographers set out to study the sediment samples acquired from the coast of Chile and the freshwater pond located in Australia. In order to lower the chances of accidently identifying viruses as bacteria, the researchers ran the samples through a solution with antibiotics, which would kill the bacteria. The researchers then presented the samples with laboratory amoebas. If a virus was present, the amoebas would be affected.

The researchers found that the amoebas became infected and spawned Pandoraviruses. As if the discovery of the world's largest virus was not enough, the researchers discovered that the virus appears to have ancient roots. After sequencing the genome of the Pandoravirus, the researchers found that the genes barely resembled any of the genes from other organisms that exist on Earth. This suggests that the virus could be linked to some ancient organism that is no longer alive. The researchers even entertained the idea that the Pandoravirus could be linked to organisms from another planet, such as Mars.

"We believe that those new Pandoraviruses have emerged from a new ancestral cellular type that no longer exists," Claverie said. "They don't have a regular shape like a regular viruses, they really look like blobs. And so they really look like small bacteria."

The Pandoravirus is so large that it is visible with an ordinary microscope. Although the researchers cannot explain exactly why the virus appears to be so different from others, they theorized that it could be due to some adaptation that increased its survival rates. The researchers are now focused on studying what the virus does in nature.

The study was published in the journal Science.