Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / May 2008

PHYSICAL REVIEW FOCUS   30 May 2008   http://focus.aps.org/
David Ehrenstein, American Physical Society

Introductions to the Focus stories of the past week;
visit http://focus.aps.org for the complete stories.

PIECING A VIRUS TOGETHER
A virus's genome is protected in a protein shell called a capsid.
Capsids have a wide variety of shapes and sizes, but in the May
Physical Review E researchers report that capsid structures from
many virus families can be constructed using just a single shape,
a trapezoid. Their analysis provides an explanation for this common
structure based purely on geometry and topology, suggesting that
mathematics could be the driving force behind capsid design and
evolution.
Ranjan V. Mannige and Charles L. Brooks, III , Phys. Rev. E 77, 051902)
Link to the paper: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v77/e051902
COMPLETE Focus story at http://focus.aps.org/story/v21/st18

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Copyright 2008, The American Physical Society.