Don't worry, it's not one that infects us.

It's a bacteria fage, meaning it infects bacteria, which actually makes it all the more impressive that it's so hard to kill.

See, bacteria have been fighting off viral infections for billions of years, and even though they lack the fancy cellular compartments that ourselves have, they've come up with some really effective defenses.

But this virus, dubbed the Faik Ese jumbo Fage, thwarted the best weapons from every bacteria scientists tested.

And that turned out to be because it does something very unveil Iris like it basically builds a nucleus inside its host.

Technically, it's unclear if it gets to be called a nucleus, since that term generally refers to the double membrane compartment where the genome is stored in plants, fund guy animals, et cetera.

Just to be clear, bacteria aren't included in that their cells don't have nuclei.

Normally, if I Casey Jumbo Fage build the nucleus inside its host bacterial cell, or at least something nucleus light, and even though it's made of proteins instead of membranes, it both looks and acts like a nucleus just like in ourselves.

All the viruses, DNA reading and copying happens inside this structure.

While our translation and protein building occurs outside and the virus not only manages to put its own genetic material and proteins into this nucleus, it somehow gets the bacterial proteins it needs to replicate its DNA in there.

So, yes, we're talking about a virus that builds a nucleus like thing inside and otherwise nucleus free bacteria.

It's as if the virus skipped a step in evolution or took a mind blowingly is like if you were anxiously awaiting your baby's first word.

But instead of Mama, they busted out Lafayette's Wrapped from Hamilton, and this nucleus makes the virus virtually unkillable.

You see the best weapons bacteria have against viral invaders Attack the virus is genetic material after it's inside their cells, like there are restriction modification or R M system.

In general, these air tag teams of two tiny enzymes one checks whether genetic material belongs in the cell, while the other chops up what doesn't belong.

And some of the most effective virus killers are crisper systems that crisper the big, hulking genetic slicers that scientists have now co opted for genetic engineering.

They could be set to target pretty much any sequence of DNA, so they can evolve to seek and destroy pretty much any virus.

But both of these rely on the bacteria.

Being able to find the virus is genetic material, which is where the nucleus like thing comes in.

Even when researchers gave bacteria super amazing crisper or R M systems from other bacteria, Faik ese jumbo Fage is kept on trucking.

That made scientists think the nucleus was protecting the virus's genome, but they wanted stronger evidence.

So they started in Ocean's 11 esque endeavor to smuggle something inside the nucleus.

Ultimately, they couldn't get a whole CRISPR system to fit.

But they did manage to sneak in R M T man, and finally, the researchers were able to slow down fight hazy replication.

This strongly suggested the nucleus like compartment is what makes the virus so hard to kill.

You might think such an effective strategy would be used by all viruses, and in fact, scientists have discovered that other jumbo bacteria phages make these structures, but that doesn't make them totally unkillable.

The virus still has to send Arnie's out of this protective envelope toe act his blueprints for the proteins that will be used by the next generation, and those are probably still vulnerable to attack.

So this virus may not be invincible, after all, Just really close to Thanks for watching this episode of Sideshow.

If you enjoyed learning about this bizarre virus, you might enjoy our episode on the viruses that shaped humanity because viruses aren't always bad.

Sometimes they give us the genetic tools to do some really interesting things.