Understanding where future Ebola virus outbreaks may start and the changing nature of the populations living in these places is of critical importance in helping to prepare for future outbreaks.

Extensive genetic diversity and novel genome structures in RNA viruses from arthropods shed important new light on the ancestry and evolutionary history of major classes of vertebrate and plant viruses.

Studies of the house mouse Mus musculus have provided important insights into mammalian biology, and efforts to study wild house mice and to create new inbred strains from wild populations have the potential to increase its usefulness as a model system.

The deer mouse (Peromyscus) has emerged as a model system for studying many aspects of biology, supported by extensive historical knowledge of its fascinating and varied natural history.

MERS-CoV infections in the Arabian Peninsula are the result of several hundred spillover events from viruses circulating in camels into the human population.

Hantaan virus nucleocapsid cryo-EM structure determined at 3.3 Å resolution reveals how nucleoproteins assemble into a metastable helix containing a continuous RNA-binding groove compatible with genome encapsidation and compaction.

Single-cell analyses of cells infected by Herpes Simplex Virus 1 revealed extreme heterogeneity among infected cells, including the robust activation of developmental gene programs in highly infected cells.

Hantavirus spikes are related laterally by 2-fold Gc contacts that can be disulfide-linked and display a temperature-dependent dynamic behavior at neutral pH, exposing and masking the Gc fusion loops.

Structural and functional studies reveal how Newcastle disease virus nucleocapsid protects its viral genome through a self-capping mechanism, which is important for new antiviral drug design.

The rat is much more than a simple model, and a better appreciation of the natural history of wild rats would increase its value as a research organism.