30,000-year-old giant virus 'comes back to life'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26387276

by jackgavigan • 11 years ago

45 21 11 years ago

bbc.co.uk

hit8run• 11 years ago

Okay this could be a new hollywood introduction to an end of the world scenario. Hopefully we will make it to the end of our days without a zombie outbreak or another end of the world scenario :D

harryf• 11 years ago

Wasn't this the plot of Prometheus more or less?

themartorana• 11 years ago

Well this is a potential side-effect of global climate change/warming that I had never considered... And I don't know this for sure, but off the cuff, I'm betting neither have 7,999,999,000 or so of the 8 billion people on the planet.

And I'm not talking about the Godzilla-esque viruses, but the possibly dormant but not dead strains of smallpox, etc.

Great illustration though - we may not have eradicated any viruses on the planet - just on the surface. (Paraphrase the article.)

rnovak• 11 years ago

I always wonder where people get these numbers. From what I understand, census bureaus, etc, still only say there are 7.3 billion people on Earth. Where are you getting the other 700,000,000?

tizzdogg• 11 years ago

Perhaps exact figures were not the point of the comment.

Fomite• 11 years ago

Public health folks think about this a lot. More pressing is things like expanding ranges for major vectors like diseases.

lucideer• 11 years ago

This reminds me of a very recent TV series

IvyMike• 11 years ago

Sort of an aside, but Radiolab recently had an episode about the relatively new class of giant "as big as bacteria" viruses. This appears to be one of those. I found the episode fascinating.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/shrink/

Amorymeltzer2• 11 years ago

The scientist they interview, Jean-Michel Claverie, has done a lot of work in the large DNA-virus world, along with Didier Raoult. One of his best papers IMO (http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/gb-2006-7-6-110) goes into some theories about viruses. Basically, these nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) look quite a lot like a nucelus in their infected amoeba targets. On some level, going back, who's to say that the nucleus wasn't just some big, DNA virus that stuck around? The parallel to the mitochondria/chloroplast theory is kind of neat to boot. Definitely worth a read.

thejaredhooper• 11 years ago

Is there any reason to be worried about the ice caps harboring viruses that could potentially wipe us out?

ctdonath• 11 years ago

Well, since they're practically wiped out and we're not, I'm not too worried.

Amorymeltzer2• 11 years ago

Might be worth noting that story is from March 2014.

dstyrb• 11 years ago

"The Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame."

dasil003• 11 years ago

Tell you what, if the oil companies unearth a Balrog I'll be joining Greenpeace day and date.

dmd• 11 years ago

I'd take one Balrog over what they've actually unearthed.

mgalka• 11 years ago

Good post. Though it doesn't really make the distinction that these giant viruses are actually very different from normal viruses. They may have actually "reverse-evolved" from bacteria, and may not even be related to regular viruses.

For anyone who listens to podcasts, there is a great Radiolab about their discovery.

andrewstuart• 11 years ago

I love it when scientists assure us of our safety.

personjerry2• 11 years ago

That's not really their job. There might be scientific facts that threaten us and scientific facts that reassure us. To reveal these facts is the job of the scientist.

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

These scientists? http://www.nature.com/news/us-military-accidentally-ships-li...

personjerry2• 11 years ago

I think it's amazing because, well, what technology do we have that could "come back to life" in 30,000 years frozen?

Nature showing how diverse and robust some of its work is.

xellisx• 11 years ago

"It comes into the cell, multiplies and finally kills the cell. It is able to kill the amoeba - but it won't infect a human cell."

Haven't there been brain eating amoeba's?

http://www.webmd.com/brain/brain-eating-amoeba

30,000-year-old giant virus 'comes back to life'

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