Russia: Scientists revive 48,500-year-old ‘Zombie Virus’ buried in ice

DY365
DY365
Published: November 30,2022 02:06 PM
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French scientists have revived a 48,500-year-old “zombie virus” buried under a frozen lake in Russia

November 30, 2022: French scientists have revived a 48,500-year-old “zombie virus” buried under a frozen lake in Russia.



The French scientists have sparked fears of yet another pandemic after the revival of the zombie virus.



Study shows that the situation would be much more disastrous in the case of plant, animal, or human diseases caused by the revival of an ancient unknown virus.



According to the preliminary report, global warming is irrevocably thawing enormous swathes of permafrost permanently frozen ground that covers a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere. This has had the unsettling effect of releasing organic materials frozen for up to a million years and possibly deadly germs included. Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times.



Scientists might have, perhaps strangely, revived some of these so-called "zombie viruses" from the Siberian permafrost in order to investigate the awakening critters.



The oldest, Pandoravirus Yedoma, was 48,500-year-old, a record age for a frozen virus returning to a form where it may infect other creatures. This breaks the previous record of a 30,000-year-old virus identified in Siberia by the same scientists in 2013.



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The new strain is one of 13 viruses with its own genome.



The Pandoravirus was discovered at the bottom of a lake in Yukechi Alas, Yakutia, Russia, others have been discovered everywhere from mammoth fur to Siberian wolf intestines.



Scientists discovered that all of the "zombie viruses" have the potential to be infectious and hence pose a "health danger" after researching the live cultures. They believe that Covid-type pandemics will become more common in the future as melting permafrost releases long-dormant viruses like a microbial Captain America.



The newly-thawed virus might only be the tip of the epidemiological iceberg as there are likely more hibernating viruses yet to be discovered.



More research is needed to assess the level of infectiousness of these unknown viruses when exposed to light, heat, oxygen, and other outside environmental variables.