Scientists revive 48,500-year-old ‘zombie virus’ from Siberian permafrost
Revived viruses had been dormant for tens of thousands of years
International scientists are warning that the irreversible thawing of permafrost due to climate change could lead to a new public health threat.
In an article posted to the preprint repository bioRxiv – which has yet to be peer-reviewed – the French, Russian and German researchers said they had revived and uncovered 13 new "zombie viruses" isolated from seven different ancient Siberian permafrost samples.
One virus had been dormant and frozen underwater for nearly 50,000 years.
The authors found that the pathogens remain infectious after tens of thousands of years.
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Revived viruses had been dormant for tens of thousands of years
International scientists are warning that the irreversible thawing of permafrost due to climate change could lead to a new public health threat.
In an article posted to the preprint repository bioRxiv – which has yet to be peer-reviewed – the French, Russian and German researchers said they had revived and uncovered 13 new "zombie viruses" isolated from seven different ancient Siberian permafrost samples.
One virus had been dormant and frozen underwater for nearly 50,000 years.
The authors found that the pathogens remain infectious after tens of thousands of years.
Scientists revive 48,500-year-old ‘zombie virus’ from Siberian permafrost
A group of international scientists that revived 13 "zombie viruses" is warning that the thawing of ancient permafrost could lead to a new public health threat.
