This scientific paper has 2,863 authors. How?
The scientific journal eLife published
a paper on viruses last month– specifically, the genetics of bacteriophages: viruses that infect, and replicate within, bacteria. By sequencing the genomes of individual bacteriophages, or phages, the authors were able to glean information about the genetic makeup of the viruses more broadly.
This particular study, however, is noteworthy beyond its scientific contributions because it was authored by no less than 2,863 people. This puts the study in league, amount-of-author-wise, with the Higgs boson discovery paper (about 6,000 authors) and the report on the first completed human genome sequence (more than 2,800 authors).
In this case (unlike with the Higgs Boson and human genome papers) the bulk of the authors listed are undergraduate students, participating in something called the Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science, or SEA-PHAGES, program.