independent and unofficial
Prince fan community
Welcome! Sign up or enter username and password to remember me
Forum jump
Forums > General Discussion > Giant Virus Resurrected from Permafrost After 30,000 Years
« Previous topic  Next topic »
  New topic   Printable     (Log in to 'subscribe' to this topic)
Author

Tweet     Share

Message
Thread started 03/03/14 6:57pm

XxAxX

avatar

Giant Virus Resurrected from Permafrost After 30,000 Years

for now it's not a problem, but what if we resurrect/encounter a virus that is capable of crossing over to humans? jurassic park virus! eek

Giant Virus Resurrected from Permafrost After 30,000 Years

Giant Virus Resurrected from Permafrost After 30,000 Years
.

View photo

An ultrathin section of a Pithovirus particle in an infected Acanthamoeba castellanii cell observed by …

A mysterious giant virus buried for 30,000 years in Siberian permafrost has been resurrected.

The virus only infects single-celled organisms and doesn't closely resemble any known pathogens that harm humans.

Even so, the new discovery raises the possibility that as the climate warms and exploration expands in long-untouched regions of Siberia, humans could release ancient or eradicated viruses. These could include Neanderthal viruses or even smallpox that have lain dormant in the ice for thousands of years.

"There is now a non-zero probability that the pathogenic microbes that bothered [ancient human populations] could be revived, and most likely infect us as well," study co-author Jean-Michel Claverie, a bioinformatics researcher at Aix-Marseille University in France, wrote in an email. "Those pathogens could be banal bacteria (curable with antibiotics) or resistant bacteria or nasty viruses. If they have been extinct for a long time, then our immune system is no longer prepared to respond to them."

(A "non-zero" probability just means the chances of the event happening are not "impossible.")

Giant viruses

In recent years, Claverie and his colleagues have discovered a host of giant viruses, which are as big as bacteria but lack characteristic cellular machinery and metabolism of those microorganisms. At least one family of these viruses likely evolved from single-celled parasites after losing essential genes, although the origins of other giant viruses remain a mystery, Claverie said. [Tiny Grandeur: Stunning I...Very Small]

In the researchers' hunt for more unknown pathogens, they took a second look at permafrost samples collected from Kolyma in the Russian Far East in 2000. Because the permafrost was layered along steep cliffs, drillers could extract samples from 30,000 years ago by drilling horizontally into the ice, thereby avoiding contamination from newer samples.

The team then took samples of this permafrost and put them in contact with amoebas (blob-like single-celled organisms) in Petri dishes. The researchers then waited to see what happened.

Some of the amoebas burst open and died. When the scientists investigated further, they found a virus had killed the amoebas.

The ancient virus infects only amoebas, not humans or other animals. This pathogen belongs to a previously unknown family of viruses, now dubbed Pithovirus, which shares only a third of its genes with any known organisms and only 11 percent of its genes with other viruses. Though the new virus resembles the largest viruses ever found, Pandoraviruses, in shape, it is more closely related to classical viruses, which have an isocahedral shape (with 20 triangular-shaped faces), Claverie said.

continued at http://news.yahoo.com/gia...20390.html

  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #1 posted 03/03/14 7:13pm

Lammastide

avatar

Great. Just great. confused

Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.”
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #2 posted 03/03/14 7:23pm

Cloudbuster

avatar

http://www.theperthgroup.com/OTHER/ENVCommentary.pdf

  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #3 posted 03/03/14 8:28pm

PurpleJedi

avatar

sneeze

By St. Boogar and all the saints at the backside door of Purgatory!
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #4 posted 03/03/14 9:27pm

lazycrockett

avatar

Yeah this doesn't have Zombie Apocalypse written all over it. confused

The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #5 posted 03/04/14 2:05am

excited

avatar

^ lol yea scary, leave it in siberia

  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #6 posted 03/05/14 10:18am

LadyCasanova

avatar

Excellent.

"Aren't you even curious? Don't you want to see the dragon behind the door?"
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
  New topic   Printable     (Log in to 'subscribe' to this topic)
« Previous topic  Next topic »
Forums > General Discussion > Giant Virus Resurrected from Permafrost After 30,000 Years