Strange Cellular Entity Challenges Very Definition of Life Itself

By Tessa Koumoundouros – Science Alert

Within a tiny plankton, an even smaller cell has been found living an unexpectedly virus-like existence, challenging what it means to be alive.

The line between living and inanimate has traditionally and controversially been drawn before viruses, and the newly discovered organism, provisionally named Sukunaarchaeum mirabile, skates awfully close to it.

Dalhousie University genomicist Ryo Harada and colleagues stumbled across the odd parasite while they were trying to catalog the DNA of the plankton species Citharistes regius and its symbiotic bacteria.