Scientists Found 48,500 Years-Old Zombie Virus Buried in Ice
- nypost.com
VoxPop – Not yet finished with the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is shocked again by a new virus that has the potential to become a pandemic. Scientists from France have founded a zombie virus that has been under a frozen lake in Russia for 48,500 years. This oldest virus is named "Pandoravirus Yedoma" from the mythological character, Pandora.
The new research was led by microbiologist Jean-Marie Alempic from the French National Center for Scientific Research, as reported by Science Alert, on Monday, December 5, 2022.
"This virus is feared to be more dangerous than cases of plant, animal, or human disease caused by the resurgence of unknown ancient viruses," the study stated.
Ilustrasi zombie.
- Istimewa
According to the preliminary paper, global warming is causing much of the permafrost, or permanently frozen ground that covers a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, to permanently thaw and unfreeze. It has the alarming effect of "releasing organic matter that has been frozen for up to a million years", including these potentially dangerous pathogens.
"Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that have remained dormant since prehistoric times," the researchers remarked.
Aix-Marseille University Professor Jean-Michel Claverie, the co-author of the study, issued a warning to medical authorities about the lack of significant updates on "live" viruses in permafrost since the initial studies in 2014 and 2015.
"It incorrectly suggests that such events are rare and that 'zombie viruses' are not a public health threat," the research team wrote in their findings.
For studying these “New” organisms, scientists, perhaps paradoxically, revived some of the so-called “Zombie viruses” from the Siberian permafrost. This record age for a frozen coming back “alive” has the potential to infect other organisms. It breaks the previous record held by a 30,000-year-old virus discovered by the same team in Siberia in 2013.
