Giant Virus Revived ********* From frozen Siberian Tundra

Russian drilling in the Siberian Tundra has uncovered a new mega virus in the ice cores they pulled from the area.
The virus is estimated to be over 30,000 years old and could be extremely dangerous to humans.

They believe they will be finding more and more of these as the climate changes and as they continue oil exploration in the region.

Link: www.latimes.com...

Researchers revived a virus dormant in a 30,000-year-old ice core. They warn that oil and gas development in far northern latitudes, such as the one shown here, near Salym, Russia, could disturb microbes harmful to humans.

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.

The latest find, described online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appears to belong to a new family of mega-viruses that infect only amoeba. 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 Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France

That is a pretty scary find! The first thing that came to mind, in true ATS fashion: Does science now have a new source for germ warfare to explore?

It looks like 2014 is going to be fast paced in the science and political arenas!

reply to post by nugget1


this was my concern as well.....like the Russians need any new little "bio toys" to play with

Reads like the opening scene to a sic-fi flick!

“Sixty percent of its gene content doesn’t resemble anything on earth,” Dr. Abergel said. She and her colleagues suspect that pithoviruses may be parasitic survivors of life forms that were very common early in the history of life.

Inject alien theory here.

Dr. Rogers considered the risk of an outbreak of resurrected viruses to be “extremely low,” pointing out that scientists have been excavating permafrost and ice for decades without any known infections.

Let's hope so eh? Although the Tundra is a unique, ancient and relatively undisturbed region. If there were a killer virus it seems likely one may reside there.
www.nytimes.com...

shame on you ATS members,,,you should know better than to suck up this kool-aid...dont you find it a little too convenient that this scary Russian Bio-threat happens too appear in the news now......this ice core sample was taken 14 years ago....given the current events in the Ukraine ,they thawed it out & made KooL-aid for ya

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


right....sounds like "The Thing"

I was expecting to see Kurt Russell running around on some video clips

Misinformation
shame on you ATS members,,,you should know better than to suck up this kool-aid...dont you find it a little too convenient that this scary Russian Bio-threat happens too appear in the news now......this ice core sample was taken 14 years ago....given the current events in the Ukraine ,they thawed it out & made KooL-aid for ya

um.....no

this one was just discovered.

They mentioned earlier discoveries including one found in 2011 but this one was just found.

reply to post by UxoriousMagnus


-----------------

giant DNA viruse

reply to post by UxoriousMagnus


Um.

These giant viruses, while recent in discovery, aren't new, as in just discovered only in the last month or so.

For instance;
Giant virus-eating virus discovered in Antartic lake from 2011
Discovery of the Giant Mimivirus

APMV was discovered accidentally in 1992 within the amoeba Acanthamoeba polyphaga, after which it is named, during research into Legionellosis. The virus was observed in a gram stain and mistakenly thought to be a gram-positive bacterium. As a consequence it was named Bradfordcoccus, after the district the amoeba was sourced from in Bradford, England. In 2003, researchers at the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France published a paper in Science identifying the micro-organism as a virus.

Mimivirus

Additionally, viruses aren't like Tyrannosaurus where bigger translates into scarier with more teeth, or something.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


a virus can kill more people than a dinosaur .... so more scary I think.

UxoriousMagnus

The virus is estimated to be over 30,000 years old and could be extremely dangerous to humans.

The article states:

"belong to a new family of mega-viruses that infect only amoeba"

Are you an amoeba? Mislead people much?

I'm so sick of this tired lying BS.....

Wait..I thought l.a.times was a farce site. Sorcha faal? I never heard this if true..
Wow considering what's not yet found that is out there.

nugget1
That is a pretty scary find! The first thing that came to mind, in true ATS fashion

: Does science now have a new source for germ warfare to explore?

It looks like 2014 is going to be fast paced in the science and political arenas!

Well it is unfortunate but they don't need help in this area. Lol they could kill every human many times over lol. No they don't need any help. The problem is gonna be it will accidentally walk out on some oil worker that goes home and infects the whole world.

Scary thought....

The Bot

reply to post by UxoriousMagnus


Megavirus is not exactly new. The first one was isolated from samples off the Chilean coast, I believe.

Megavirus is a classification based on the roughly 1.2 million base pairs of DNA. Somewhat larger than the next largest virus
(+10%).

Nothing to panic about, particularly other than we just do not know what we do not know. The unknown is always scary.

UxoriousMagnus
Russian drilling in the Siberian Tundra has uncovered a new mega virus in the ice cores they pulled from the area.
The virus is estimated to be over 30,000 years old and could be extremely dangerous to humans.

NO! Why are you saying this? The virus only affects Amoeba's. Last time I looked a mirror I didn't look like an Amoeba.....well maybe on sunday morning.

Terms and conditions prevent me from stating the bleedin obvious about what you have written.

FYI there are billions of virus on this planet and the vast majority have no influence on human beings.........do you understand why? (rhetorical)

reply to post by yorkshirelad

Megavirus sounds threatening (megashark anyone? lol) and ominous. Therefore it is a simple thing to generate paranoia no matter how innocuous it is.

Way to go L.A. Times. Take a important discovery in Biology, add some Doom Porn sprinkles, and we have the makings for more anxiety out of people over absolutely no threat that will ever touch their lives or the lives of anyone they know.

Has anyone been infected with this? More importantly....have multiple people been infected by it? Until (god forbid) or unless that happens, it's pure guess work as to whether is even is a threat. It could kill one person, mutate while in them, and pop out more harmless than the common cold.

Likewise, the common cold could meet another virus this year and come back more deadly than the Spanish Flu, next year.

I love how they twist it around to be another "This is your DOOM if Climate Change isn't addressed, NOW!" story. Gotta love the L.A. Times for that. They are predictable, if nothing like unbiased in reporting.

yorkshirelad

UxoriousMagnus
Russian drilling in the Siberian Tundra has uncovered a new mega virus in the ice cores they pulled from the area.
The virus is estimated to be over 30,000 years old and could be extremely dangerous to humans.

NO! Why are you saying this? The virus only affects Amoeba's. Last time I looked a mirror I didn't look like an Amoeba.....well maybe on sunday morning.

Terms and conditions prevent me from stating the bleedin obvious about what you have written.

FYI there are billions of virus on this planet and the vast majority have no influence on human beings.........do you understand why? (rhetorical)

You are correct that the "amoeba" virus is not harmful to humans and another poster mentioned this as well. The article states that they only check for non-human affecting organisms when they check the ice cores....but that they are going back to check again to see if there are any human harming organisms in the ice cores as well. They fear that they could hit an old small pox or something similar virus in these cores as small pox was rampant in this area.

my sentence should have said "and others could be extremely dangerous" in stead of "and could be extremely dangerous."

I tried to edit it but my time limit had expired.

sorry for the confusion