Mega virus revived from Siberian ice after 30,000 years chills scientists
Giant virus that spent 30,000 years under Siberian tundra is no threat to humans, but its revival by scientists has ominous implications
A 30,000-year-old giant virus has been revived from the frozen Siberian tundra, sparking concern that increased mining and oil drilling in rapidly warming northern latitudes could disturb dormant microbial life that could one day prove harmful to man.
But its revival in a laboratory stands as "a proof of principle that we could eventually resurrect active infectious viruses from different periods", said the study's lead author, microbiologist Professor Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France.
"We know that those non-dangerous viruses are alive there, which probably is telling us that the dangerous kind that may infect humans and animals - that we think were eradicated from the surface of earth - are actually still present and eventually viable, in the ground," Claverie said.
With global warming making northern reaches more accessible, the chance of disturbing dormant human pathogens increased, the researchers concluded.
Average surface temperatures in the area that contained the virus had increased more steeply than in more temperate latitudes, the researchers noted.