Thirteen viruses from tens of thousands of years ago have been recovered and reactivated, according to a preprint paper published in BioRxiv. These threats had been idling in the Siberian tundra for approximately 30,000 to 50,000 years before being brought back.
And, as it turns out, they may not be alone. That's because the thawing of the frozen terrain, thanks to climate change, could revive an assortment of additional “zombie” viruses in the years to come.
Permafrost — the frigid terrain that stays frozen throughout the year — comprises over 10 percent of our planet’s surface and substantial swaths of the Arctic, a circumpolar area containing Alaska, Scandinavia and Siberia. But the Arctic’s temperatures are warming almost four times faster than the average around the world, and the permafrost there is fading fast, freeing all sorts of frozen organisms, including microbes and viruses from thousands of years ago.
An abundance ...
