Defrosting ancient poo could reintroduce some age-old bugs to the modern world, scientists say.
Defrosting ancient poo could reintroduce some age-old bugs to the modern world, scientists say.
An extremely infectious and deadly ancient virus, released from a frozen slumber by warming climates, could play havoc with immune systems that have no experience of such germs.
A team of international biologists, including the University of Canterbury’s Arvind Varsani, has proven that such an incident is theoretically possible, after they resurrected an ancient virus from the 700-year-old frozen droppings of Canadian caribou.
With a little reconstruction, the DNA virus, christened the “caribou faeces-associated virus”, has gone on to infect modern-day plants, according to a paper published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Varsani said the team had proved ancient viruses were as worthwhile to study as today’s versions – as both may make up tomorrow’s germs
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.stuff.co.nz
Arvind Varsani, again! He’s everywhere B-)
…and some scientists pooh-pooh such statements [sorry!], because – as with the Giant Killer Viruses From Tundra! sensationalism, there is NO proof that (a) there are myriad killer viruses in permafrost, (b) very little proof that they will infect anything outside of a lab.
Seriously: the French team that found pitho- and molliviruses had to use lab-cultured amoebae to resurrect them; Arvind and crew had to make agroinfectious partially dimeric clones of their virus and inject them into lab plants to make them infectious.
And there’ll be precious little of that going in in clearings in the tundra.
See on Scoop.it – Virology News
ViroBlogy 
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