Viruses Can Aid Bacterial Survival in Man-Made Environments

We still don’t know a lot about how bacteria and viruses relate to one another in man-made or built environments such as buildings and modes of transportation, but scientists have recently investigated the relationship. This work has shown that viruses that infect bacteria, called bacteriophages, can help bacteria survive in these places by inserting beneficial genes into the bacterial genome. This work has also shown that viruses are ubiquitous parts of these environments, and revealed some that were previously unknown. The findings have been reported…