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The words virus and mutating don't sound too good together.

Research is just released to preliminary study that suggests the chronovirus may be mutating.

Maybe mutating is that true.

A new strain appeared in February in Europe, then migrated quickly to the east coast of the United States.

And while mutations in movies and comic books are always a big deal, in reality they're really not.

We're always fed this idea that mutations are scary and important and consequential.

And most of the time they're really none of those things.

They're just a natural part of viral existence.

This episode from the Atlantic, science journalist Ed Young is back on the show.

For a little reality check on coronavirus mutations.

I'm Maddie Safiah and this is shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.

All right Ed, so you've got a big piece about this out for the Atlantic.

First things first, viruses going to virus and mutations are normal when the virus replicates

or makes copies of itself.

Yeah, so viruses infect other cells and make more copies of themselves in that process.

They have to make duplicates of their genetic material and that process is sloppy,

so the duplicates end up with errors in them and we call those mutations.

They're just like typos in the virus's genes and they're just completely normal.

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