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Researchers from the University of Aix-Marseille, in France, revived 13 viruses extracted from permafrost samples from the far east of Russia, including one that is 48,500 years old, the oldest ever recovered in a laboratory. The pathogens remained capable of infecting organisms even after tens of millennia frozen. The samples included 27,000-year-old mammoth feces and stomach contents of a Siberian wolf, from which viruses named Pithovirus mammoth, Pandoravirus mammoth, and Pacmanvirus lupus were isolated.
The oldest virus ever brought back to life in a laboratory is 48,500 years old and was dormant in the Siberian permafrost since a time when Neanderthals still roamed Europe. Researchers from the University of Aix-Marseille, in France, revived this and 12 other pathogens from permanently frozen soil samples collected in the far east of Russia. According to IFL Science, the result was alarming: even after tens of millennia inactive, the viruses remained capable of infecting organisms, demonstrating that permafrost functions as a biological time capsule that preserves pathogens in a viable state for unimaginable periods.
The study, published in the scientific journal Viruses, warned that the accelerated thawing of permafrost due to climate change tends to release these unknown organisms into the environment. The researchers acknowledged that it is still impossible to estimate how long each virus could remain infectious once exposed to external conditions, or the likelihood of finding a suitable host. But they were categorical: “The risk is bound to increase in the context of global warming.”
What scientists found inside a mammoth and a wolf
The permafrost samples that yielded the 13 reanimated viruses did not come from just any point of the frozen soil. Researchers isolated pathogens from frozen feces of a 27,000-year-old mammoth and the stomach contents of a Siberian wolf, biological materials that have been preserved at constant negative temperatures since the last Ice Age.
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The viruses were given names reflecting their origin: Pithovirus mammoth, Pandoravirus mammoth, Megavirus mammoth, Pacmanvirus lupus, and Pandoravirus lupus. The diversity of species found indicates that the permafrost does not harbor just one type of virus, but a complete microbiological ecosystem that was frozen along with the animals that carried it. For scientists, this means that each cubic meter of melting permafrost can release pathogens for which humanity has no immunological record.
The anthrax outbreak that proved the risk is not theoretical
In 2016, a heatwave in the Yamal Peninsula, Siberia, thawed a reindeer carcass infected with anthrax bacteria decades ago. The bacteria spread, killed a child, hospitalized dozens of people, and led to the culling of more than 200,000 reindeer in the region, in one of the most severe episodes of pathogen infection released from permafrost ever documented.
Some scientists attributed the outbreak to a decline in local herd vaccination, minimizing the connection to the thaw. But the episode reignited the international debate about what else might be frozen beneath the Arctic soil, waiting for the temperature to rise enough to release it. For researchers at Aix-Marseille, the Yamal case is exactly the type of scenario their studies with 48,500-year-old viruses aim to anticipate.
The virus that turns potatoes into viscous mass
The threat of permafrost pathogens is not limited to humans and animals. Researchers from the Korea Polar Research Institute collected permafrost samples on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, and allowed the material to thaw in the laboratory for 90 days. A bacterium called Pseudomonas, responsible for potato soft rot, proliferated rapidly as soon as the ice lost its control.
When placed in contact with potato tubers, the bacteria turned them into a viscous and inedible mass. Other plant pathogens were also detected in frozen deposits: ice cores from Greenland, up to 140,000 years old, contained the tomato mosaic virus, capable of infecting tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, and beets. The scenario becomes more concerning because global warming is attracting farmers to plant in newly thawed soils in the Arctic.
What the melting of permafrost may release in the future
The permafrost covers approximately 25% of the Earth’s surface in the Northern Hemisphere and stores not only viruses and bacteria but also immense amounts of carbon and methane. Global warming is accelerating the melting at rates that exceed climate model predictions from a decade ago, and each passing year exposes deeper and older layers of the frozen soil.
The central question for the scientific community is not if ancient pathogens will be released, but when and in what quantity. The 48,500-year-old virus reanimated in the laboratory demonstrates that infectious viability can survive entire geological periods. If pathogens from mammoths and Siberian wolves managed to maintain their ability to infect after millennia, what else could be frozen in the even deeper layers of permafrost that have not yet been reached by the thaw?
Did you know that scientists managed to reanimate a 48,500-year-old virus and that it still worked? What worries you more: pathogens that can infect humans, those that destroy crops, or the fact that we don’t know what else is frozen? Tell us in the comments.
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