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Massive prehistoric virus unearthed from Siberia's frozen wasteland.

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orochi91

Member
Paris (AFP) - 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.

Reporting this week in the flagship journal of the US National Academy of Sciences, French researchers announced the discovery of Mollivirus sibericum, the fourth type of pre-historic virus found since 2003 -- and the second by this team.

Before waking it up, researchers will have to verify that the bug cannot cause animal or human disease.

To qualify as a "giant", a virus has to be longer than half a micron, a thousandth of a millimetre (0.00002 of an inch).

Mollivirus sibericum -- "soft virus from Siberia" -- comes in at 0.6 microns, and was found in the permafrost of northeastern Russia.
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The regions in which these giant microbes have been found are coveted for their mineral resources, especially oil, and will become increasingly accessible for industrial exploitation as more of the ice melts away.

"If we are not careful, and we industrialise these areas without putting safeguards in place, we run the risk of one day waking up viruses such as small pox that we thought were eradicated," he added.
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Unlike most viruses circulating today, and to the general astonishment of scientists, these ancient specimens dating from the last Ice Age are not only bigger, but far more complex genetically.

M. sibericum has more than 500 genes, while another family of giant virus discovered in 2003, Pandoravirus, has 2,500. The Influenza A virus, by contrast, has eight genes.
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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.
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More at the link: http://news.yahoo.com/frankenvirus-emerges-siberias-frozen-wasteland-142859117.html

Fascinating stuff, and I expect these sort of discoveries to become commonplace as the permafrost in Siberia and the Canadian tundra continue to dissipate due to climate change.
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Wonder how long it will take until we lose contact to the research base.
 
ThisGuy

ThisGuy

Member
I would like to see it in action in a controlled environment.

I wonder if the complexity of the virus was it's downfall.
 
D

DemiMatt

Member
"If we are not careful, and we industrialise these areas without putting safeguards in place, we run the risk of one day waking up viruses such as small pox that we thought were eradicated," he added.
Click to expand...

Big scare tactics.
 
Jzero

Jzero

Member
End_game_x-files.jpg
 
M

mantidor

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

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

ItIsOkBro

Member
I read the article and it doesn't say why they're reanimating a dangerous virus...why are they reanimating a dangerous virus? A dangerous virus called pandoravirus?
 
O

orochi91

Member
Any Biology majors here?

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

ItIsOkBro said:
I read the article and it doesn't say why they're reanimating a dangerous virus...why are they reanimating a dangerous virus? A dangerous virus called pandoravirus?
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Perhaps they can learn something from it and use that knowledge to work on cures for modern illnesses.

Other than that, it's probably morbid curiosity lol
 
S

Sesha

Member
Hope they brought flamethrowers.

davepoobond said:
a virus is resurrected...

it has 2500 genes....

a normal virus has 8...


get ready for....

Gigantovirus - The Massive Prehistoric Virus
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That's too clever.

It has to be something more modern and eyecatching.

Like MegaVirus
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
SiberiaGAF, are you still there? SiberiaGAF, please respond!
 
davepoobond

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
Sesha said:
Hope they brought flamethrowers.



That's too clever.

It have to be something more modern and eyecatching.

Like MegaVirus
Click to expand...


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

Zubz

Banned
Just watch. This'll get out and spread, and there'll be a big hoopla over it, but it'll end up being no worse than the common cold.
 
S

SolidusDave

Member
Fenderputty said:
It's crazy that we can reanimate a 30k year old virus.
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I'm not sure you actually have to do much. As long as the virus is intact, thawing it should be enough.
Basically. You probably have to find ideal conditions for infection and the right cell type.

Virus can't multiply w/o a host cell so I guess they let it infect cell cultures to get more of it for the studies.
I'm not sure if that's what they mean by waking it up? They my have used advanced sequencing techniques from very small amounts so that they can already check the genes before having it infect cells I guess.


For the doomsday people:
Such old virus are probably pretty outdated in evolutionary terms, even if they find a suitable host our immune systems should be able to deal with that unless maybe it's something humans never had contact with or similar mutations rates like the flu.


UNLESS, it being a virus, it may have been SO potent it killed EVERYTHING and died out along with the hosts. Until now!
 
S

Srey Plaughtered

Member
Before waking it up, researchers will have to verify that the bug cannot cause animal or human disease.
Click to expand...

Is there even a safe way to do that without testing it on someone? Man just let the thing be stuck in ice, it was frozen for a reason.
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Zubz said:
Just watch. This'll get out and spread, and there'll be a big hoopla over it, but it'll end up being no worse than the common cold.
Click to expand...

This is what the lizard people want us to believe.
 
O

orochi91

Member
Srey Plaughtered said:
Is there even a safe way to do that without testing it on someone? Man just let the thing be stuck in ice, it was frozen for a reason.
Click to expand...

They say they're gonna test the virus on an amoeba, which will serve as the host.

From this, they should be able to see how..."active" the virus is.
 
L

LookAtMeGo

Member
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.
 
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