An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” reports the discovery of giant viruses in a forest soil ecosystem. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass Amherst) discovered 16 new giant viruses and described their genome. A genomic analysis on their capsid, the protein structure that contains DNA or RNA of a virus, indicates a genetic diversity of giant viruses still unknown.