↓ Skip to main content

The discovery of endogenous retroviruses

Overview of attention for article published in Retrovirology, October 2006
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#13 of 1,284)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (91st percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
blogs
5 blogs
twitter
20 X users
facebook
10 Facebook pages
wikipedia
9 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
13 Google+ users
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

dimensions_citation
283 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
476 Mendeley
citeulike
2 CiteULike
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
The discovery of endogenous retroviruses
Published in
Retrovirology, October 2006
DOI 10.1186/1742-4690-3-67
Pubmed ID
Authors

Robin A Weiss

Abstract

When endogenous retroviruses (ERV) were discovered in the late 1960s, the Mendelian inheritance of retroviral genomes by their hosts was an entirely new concept. Indeed Howard M Temin's DNA provirus hypothesis enunciated in 1964 was not generally accepted, and reverse transcriptase was yet to be discovered. Nonetheless, the evidence that we accrued in the pre-molecular era has stood the test of time, and our hypothesis on ERV, which one reviewer described as 'impossible', proved to be correct. Here I recount some of the key observations in birds and mammals that led to the discovery of ERV, and comment on their evolution, cross-species dispersion, and what remains to be elucidated.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 20 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 476 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 7 1%
United Kingdom 5 1%
Brazil 4 <1%
Canada 2 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
France 1 <1%
Portugal 1 <1%
Mexico 1 <1%
Iran, Islamic Republic of 1 <1%
Other 2 <1%
Unknown 451 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 110 23%
Student > Ph. D. Student 86 18%
Researcher 68 14%
Student > Master 62 13%
Student > Doctoral Student 22 5%
Other 62 13%
Unknown 66 14%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 193 41%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 95 20%
Medicine and Dentistry 31 7%
Immunology and Microbiology 31 7%
Chemistry 13 3%
Other 41 9%
Unknown 72 15%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 73. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 May 2024.
All research outputs
#603,922
of 25,904,557 outputs
Outputs from Retrovirology
#13
of 1,284 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#869
of 88,845 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Retrovirology
#1
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,904,557 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,284 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 88,845 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.