The scientist they interview, Jean-Michel Claverie, has done a lot of work in the large DNA-virus world, along with Didier Raoult. One of his best papers IMO (

The scientist they interview, Jean-Michel Claverie, has done a lot of work in the large DNA-virus world, along with Didier Raoult. One of his best papers IMO (http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/gb-2006-7-6-110 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/gb-2006-7-6-110) goes into some theories about viruses. Basically, these nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) look quite a lot like a nucelus in their infected amoeba targets. On some level, going back, who's to say that the nucleus wasn't just some big, DNA virus that stuck around? The parallel to the mitochondria/chloroplast theory is kind of neat to boot. Definitely worth a read.