Started by Shinawi, May 10, 2017, 12:11:15 AM
QuoteAncient, giant viruses are being unearthed in Arctic ice that's at risk of meltingRevitalized ancient viruses might one day get added to the list of ominous consequences of melting ice.Scientists working in the Arctic circle over the past few decades have unearthed several massive viruses that some say could be re-awakened if the permafrost that imprisons them dissolves.In 2015, researchers in Siberia uncovered one called Mollivirus sibericum, a 30,000-year-old behemoth of a virus that succeeded in infecting a rather defenseless amoeba in a lab experiment. About a decade earlier, scientists discovered the first Mimivirus, a 1,200-gene specimen measuring twice the width of traditional viruses, buried beneath layers of melting frost in the Russian tundra. (For comparison, HIV has just nine genes.)........