- Scientists discovered a
30,000-year-old virus frozen
in the Siberian wastelands
Let's defrost that sucker
before climate change beats us to it.
(steady rhythmic instrumental music)
That's right, earthwarmers.
According to a 2015 study published
in the proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences,
a team of French
researchers have unearthed
a prehistoric virus
from the late-Stone Age
very deep in the Siberian permafrost.
Dubbed Mollivirus sibericum,
or soft virus from Siberia, this bad boy
stands out, not only for
its genetic complexity,
but also its relatively gigantic size.
I mean, it's still rather small
coming in at 0.6 microns,
but anything larger
than half a micron is visible via
a traditional light microscope.
Most viruses these days are less than
a third that size, and have to be studied
with an electron microscope.
And as far as genetic complexity goes,
your standard flu virus
runs a mere eight genes.
Mollivirus sibericum boasts more than 500.
Another giant virus discovered
in 2003, pandoravirus, has 2,500,
far short of the human 20,000,
but you get the idea.
All told, we've unearthed
four giant prehistoric viruses
in the last 12 years,
and I know this sound a bit scary.
Perhaps so many memories of The Thing
ripping through an
Antarctic research station,
but first of all, researchers only intend
to resurrect this virus if
it doesn't pose a threat
to contemporary organisms.
And secondly, these viruses come from
a mineral-rich area in
a rapidly warming world.
Climate change and
industrialization are going
to release these antediluvian
viral life forms anyway,
so science might as well
get ahead of the game.
Besides, these are not untested waters.
Back in 2004, US researchers revived
the deadly Spanish flu virus
so as to better understand how it killed
between 50 and 100 million
people back in 1918.
If we can bring that
back on our own terms,
then we should be able to handle
a few viral ancestors from a time
when as few as 1,000
humans lived in Eurasia.
So, where do you stand on all this?
Do you still feel a bit
squeamish about the whole thing
or are you good to go?
Let me know in the comments below
and be sure to like and subscribe
if you want more weird now goodness
popping up in your Petri dish.
