Daily Editorials | Current Affairs | INDIAN EXPRESS | Jan 19, 2020

Daily Editorials | Current Affairs | INDIAN EXPRESS | Jan 19, 2020 | Yada Yada Virus

Yada Yada Virus

• Researchers recently reported the discovery of a new virus conceded that the discovery wasn’t a big deal, with new viruses being announced every day. Therefore, the researchers have named their discovery “Yada Yada virus” (YYV).

Key Highlights:

• Yada Yada Virus (YYV) is an alphavirus, a group of viruses that the researchers described as small, single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses (that) include species important to human and animal health and which are transmitted primarily by mosquitoes and (are) pathogenic in their vertebrate hosts.

• Unlike some other alphaviruses, Yada Yada does not pose a threat to human beings.

• The virus was detected in mosquitoes trapped in three locations in Victoria, Australia.

Background:

• YYV takes its name from ‘The Yada Yada’, an episode of the television sitcom Seinfeld, which aired on the American network NBC on April 24, 1997.

• Merriam-Webster says yada yada is “boring or empty talk”, a way to recount words that are “too dull or predictable to be worth repeating”. The Cambridge dictionary says yada yada is only “blah blah blah”.