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[orochi91]

I think genetic evolution actually refines things to need less code thus less complexity, like efficient program code does more with less.

That's a good assumption, it makes just enough sense to be believable.

I'll stick with your answer until someone else comes in and further enlightens us :3

How likely is it that unfreezing that virus will cure cancer? I think the risk assessment should be done on that basis.

I'm under the impression that these types of tests are always done in order to gleam some sort of genetic material needed to combat modern illnesses.

The alternative is that they're doing its for the "lols"

 

[way more]

bacteriophage

Giant Virus

Sputnik


like if your gonna shitpost about giant viruses invading at least don't use bacteriophage images

People know what phage looks like. It looks cooler so that's why we use it.

Besides, if they were 200 feet tall they wouldn't be attacking bacteria, they would be eating people whole. FACE!

 

[Walpurgis]

SiberiaGAF, are you still there? SiberiaGAF, please respond!

Siberia-GAF! SIBERIA-GAF! SIBERIA-GAAAAAAAAF!!!!

 

[davepoobond]

I knew this thread was gonna be funny. So should I just upload my SKYNET AI today to get ahead of this? Was waiting for the right moment....

skynet IS the prehistoric virus... humans become computers

 

[JC Sera]

That's a good assumption, it makes just enough sense to be believable.

I'll stick with your answer until someone else comes in and further enlightens us :3



I'm under the impression that these types of tests are always done in order to gleam some sort of genetic material needed to combat modern illnesses.

The alternative is that they're doing its for the "lols"

"why study animals if it doesn't give any medical advantage"
"why study plants if it doesn't give any medcal advantage"
we study non-human/animal viruses because theres just so much shit to learn
they are really interesting

 

[double jump]

Science has no chill.

 

[Netherscourge]

Virusaurus Rex

 

[UFO]

Scientists said they will reanimate a 30,000-year-old giant virus unearthed in the frozen wastelands of Siberia, and warned climate change may awaken dangerous microscopic pathogens.

This doesn't sound like a good idea. Who thought this was a good idea? Why are they doing this?

 

[Stinkles]

The article quotes the faulty idea that a virus with more genes is more complex - and people naturally assume that means more sophisticated.

Geneticists are continually confounded by this problem - there are unthinking, blind worms with more genes than humans.

Genes are scary complex and the research in that field is kind of like physics in that the deeper we go, the more confusing it gets.

This doesn't sound like a good idea. Who thought this was a good idea? Why are they doing this?

would you rather they examined it in the corpses of dead Siberian kids?

 

[Jedi2016]

Wasn't this a level in Plague Inc.?

 

[Clefargle]

That is an enormous virus, like a couple of scales bigger

 

[RoyaleDuke]

So you're saying that John Carpenter's The Thing is now real.

MCREADY! THE FLAMETHROWER!

Spoiler

This supervirus thing sounds dangerous.

 

[Hackworth]

Any Biology majors here?

Why would these ancient viruses be more genetically complex than modern day ones, like the Influenza strain?

It's been a while since I focused on microorganisms but I'll give this a shot.

Natural selection can act as a simplifier: as I understand it, viruses are (basically) sections of larger organisms (eg RNA transcribers from inside a cell) that broke off and found a parasitic niche.
Viruses with less genes will replicate more quickly than larger ones, and may therefore be better able to hijack targeted cells (and may produce more descendants with less resources, allowing them to overwhelm more cells).

Bacteria are similar: in environments with few stresses, bacterial selection tends towards very simple and quick replicators. You get pressure to hold onto plasmids and activate secondary DNA when stresses kick in.

 

[akira28]

giant, genetically complex virii? that's wild. I'm interested in that genetic complexity bit.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

Wonder how long it will take until we lose contact to the research base.

Don't worry, it only seizes control of the host personality while leaving their intelligence intact, communication with the base will continue.

 

[Valkerionseven]

Pretty sure this is the plot of Resident Evil 4

 

[ZangBa]

Ebola 2.0 incoming. How long until we start panicking?

 

[Yleyana]

Time to start digging my bunker. I'll PM the coordinates to any interested. BYOB.

Watch this virus kill all other viruses and save humanity.

Best protagonist.

 

[akira28]

Ebola 2.0 incoming. How long until we start panicking?

15 minutes ago

 

[CrunchyFrog]

In 2004, US scientists resurrected the notorious "Spanish flu" virus, which killed tens of millions of people, in order to understand how the pathogen was extraordinarily so virulent.

Wording here seems to be banking on people misinterpreting it as "the US government let this awful virus loose that killed people in 2004" for clicks instead of "In 2004 the US government studied a virus which was the cause of the deadly Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918"

This doesn't sound like a good idea. Who thought this was a good idea? Why are they doing this?

They kind of explain in the article. The hope is that by studying this pathogen in a controlled environment we might be able to combat its like in the future should they ever be found in the wild. Even better, they may even find ways to use it to cure/treat other forms of disease.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

So..23rd..hurry up..

 

[Staccat0]

 

[TOM f'N CRUISE]

 

[Toxi]

Aren't giant viruses usually bacteria viruses?

As to anyone worried about this infecting humans, giant viruses can only infect amoeba.
They enter the virus by the cell engulfing them, rather than a forced entry like most other viruses, then reproducing.

They can get in the human body, but its found that they will survive macrophage engulfment, due to their particular way of cell up take. However they lie inert in the macrophage, because all their parts are design to high jack amoeba cell organs, rather than mammalian.

30,000 year old virus, especially a highly complex & big one, wouldn't be able to infect humans, due to size and high niche specificity.

(Also giant viruses can get infected by virophages and thats so cool viruses inside your viruses)

Huh. Guess I was mistaken; it wouldn't make much sense anyway for bacteria viruses to be enormous when bacteria are so small in general compared to Eukaryotes.

 

[jerry113]

This doesn't sound like a good idea. Who thought this was a good idea? Why are they doing this?

They were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think about whether they should.

 

[xbhaskarx]

reanimate a 30,000-year-old giant virus unearthed in the frozen wastelands of Siberia, and warned climate change may awaken dangerous microscopic pathogens.

I watched a documentary about this

 

[Spladam]

Well, according to youtube, the LHC is has a good chance of opening a portal to hell bringing forth demons followed by Satan riding a black hole, so this is not all that scary.

 

[Venture]

As to anyone worried about this infecting humans, giant viruses can only infect amoeba.
They enter the virus by the cell engulfing them, rather than a forced entry like most other viruses, then reproducing.

They can get in the human body, but its found that they will survive macrophage engulfment, due to their particular way of cell up take. However they lie inert in the macrophage, because all their parts are design to high jack amoeba cell organs, rather than mammalian.

30,000 year old virus, especially a highly complex & big one, wouldn't be able to infect humans, due to size and high niche specificity.

(Also giant viruses can get infected by virophages and thats so cool viruses inside your viruses)

Yeah, and they said there's no way the dinosuars at Jurassic Park could ever breed too.


Seriously though, this is the scariest part of the article.

In 2004, US scientists resurrected the notorious "Spanish flu" virus, which killed tens of millions of people, in order to understand how the pathogen was extraordinarily so virulent.

US researchers flew to Alaska to take frozen lung tissues from a woman who was buried in permafrost.

By teasing genetic scraps out of these precious samples and from autopsy tissues stored in formalin, the team painstakingly reconstructed the code for the virus' eight genes.

The work was done in a top-security lab at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Reminds me of the beginning of The Stand.

 

[Downhome]

I'm pissed off at you guys. Thanks for spoiling the big secret behind The Walking Dead for me, ugh.

 

[JC Sera]

Btw most spanish flu victims didn't die from the virus, but opportunistic bacterial pneumonia
so if the spanish flu was to ever comeback, it will have a much lower mortality, due to our ability to treat the fatal factor with antibiotics
(had to write an exam on this stuff)

 

[bengraven]

.

Why is Deb from Everybody Loves Raymond shooting at Mulder while House throws a white bed pan at him?

 

[Daingurse]

So this is how we get the T-Virus.

 

[Yleyana]

Well, according to youtube, the LHC is has a good chance of opening a portal to hell bringing forth demons followed by Satan riding a black hole, so this is not all that scary.

I thought that was the universe we were already living in and the LHC was our only chance at opening a gateway to heaven.

 

[Sesha]

I guess i was going for a more 60's pulp sci-fi rather than 10s Syfy dumb-down sci-fi

I know.

I'd kill for that 60s pulp version. Less The Thing from Another World and more The Deadly Mantis, though.

 

[Spladam]

I thought that was the universe we were already living in and the LHC was our only chance at opening a gateway to heaven.

Your're pretty cool. *Fist bump*

 

[Extra Sauce]

"Scientists said they will reanimate a 30,000-year-old giant virus unearthed in the frozen wastelands of Siberia"

 

[DrSlek]

I know how this movie ends

 

[Venture]

Btw most spanish flu victims didn't die from the virus, but opportunistic bacterial pneumonia
so if the spanish flu was to ever comeback, it will have a much lower mortality, due to our ability to treat the fatal factor with antibiotics
(had to write an exam on this stuff)

That's a bit less scary. Thanks for dropping some knowledge in here.

 

[akira28]

Well, according to youtube, the LHC is has a good chance of opening a portal to hell bringing forth demons followed by Satan riding a black hole, so this is not all that scary.

hell-chicks are pretty hot, so this could be a good/bad thing. you know? Personally I support immigration.

 

[Armoured Priest]

That's the beginning of a disaster movie if I've ever read one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfltRGG_yQo

 

[orochi91]

It's been a while since I focused on microorganisms but I'll give this a shot.

Natural selection can act as a simplifier: as I understand it, viruses are (basically) sections of larger organisms (eg RNA transcribers from inside a cell) that broke off and found a parasitic niche.
Viruses with less genes will replicate more quickly than larger ones, and may therefore be better able to hijack targeted cells (and may produce more descendants with less resources, allowing them to overwhelm more cells).

Bacteria are similar: in environments with few stresses, bacterial selection tends towards very simple and quick replicators. You get pressure to hold onto plasmids and activate secondary DNA when stresses kick in.

This is the post I've been waiting for; thanks for the input, Hackworth.

What kind of environment do you think would stress these ancient viruses enough to develop hundreds (and thousands) of genes, versus the simple genetic composition of modern viruses?

 

[Spladam]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfltRGG_yQo

Watching that opening I could only think "Hey this game jacked the plots of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Terminator and homogenized them as one story."

Imagine my surprise when I read "Creator: Hideo Kojima" as smooth 80's Rock/Jazz fusion played in the background. Don't know what to think now.

 

[Angelus Errare]

MIlitary has like 10 F-35 F-16s with enough bombs to go scorched earth if they even feel like something is wrong.

RIP researchers, you brought this on yourself.

#MakeTheCallObama

 

[Yleyana]

Your're pretty cool. *Fist bump*

*fist bump*

Why thank you.

I might be a ghost for an organization.

 

[Spladam]

*fist bump*

Why thank you.

I might be a ghost for an organization.

Well, I hope THE ORGANIZATION is putting agents on this prehistoric virus thing.

 

[IchigoSharingan]

I sometimes wonder if scientists just want to make movie scenarios to happen.

I mean, why even revive it? do we really need to?

Modify it to kill cancer. Jumps from person to person automatically, infecting them with cures for cancer.

The world's first White Virus.

 

[Africanus]

Even allowing the possibility that such a virus could wreak havoc upon mankind, is it not better to learn about it in advance before climate change melts many perma-frost locations?

I would rather have experienced scientists than unaware scientists because some people knew how to quote Jurassic Park.

 

[ffdgh]

Something something shut down everything.

 

[Hackworth]

This is the post I've been waiting for; thanks for the input, Hackworth.

What kind of environment do you think would stress these ancient viruses enough to develop hundreds (and thousands) of genes, versus the simple genetic composition of modern viruses?

Idk, sorry.
An earlier post (here, thanks JC) mentioned that giant viruses have a different infection vector and target to the plant and animal viruses I studied.
As a result, it might just be a lack of pressure to slim down meaning they stay relatively huge. I mean, standard small viruses are basically RNA injectors, but giant ones aren't apparently.

 

[Yleyana]

Well, I hope THE ORGANIZATION is putting agents on this prehistoric virus thing.

If it needs to. I will begin my name change processing early next month, then be defecting/emigrating asap.

Modify it to kill cancer. Jumps from person to person automatically, infecting them with cures for cancer.

The world's first White Virus.

YES.