Arctic Permafrost Preserved a 48,500-Year-Old 'Zombie' Virus — Now Scientists Have Revived It
Along the Northern Hemisphere, stretching for millions of miles from Alaska to Canada to Siberia, tiny hungry microbes have been entombed in the permafrost for the past millions of years. This permafrost acts as a giant freezer that traps within it everything from carbon to toxic mercury and dangerous chemicals that carry the potential of devastating humanity. However, as the permafrost thaws due to global warming, the ravenous microbes buried inside these cold, dark underground soils threaten to re-awaken and unleash disaster upon the surrounding regions, as some French scientists reported in a study published on bioRxiv.
Permafrost, which enrobes about one-fifth of the Arctic ice, is a gigantic time capsule simmering underneath with mummified remains of animals, maybe even humans. These mummified remains lock a population of creepy microbes within them that, if released into the atmosphere, could pose infections that would even surpass the COVID virus. NASA explains that this icy chunk stores twice as much carbon as there is in the Earth’s atmosphere. Not just carbon, but also greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide.
Lying dormant within these soils, the hungry microbes start waking up and vigorously feed on the organic matter locked within. As they feed, they release greenhouse gases. And as these gases waft into the atmosphere, not only does the heating intensify, but the spreading gases also pose a threat to humans. In the study, the researchers noted that if the climate crisis succeeds in unleashing this slew of microbes trapped in the grip of ice, the results would be catastrophic. The re-awakening of these Arctic microbes could release life-threatening viruses on humans.
The study was conducted by a team of researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research, led by microbiologist Jean-Michel Claverie. They drilled the cores of Earth from the permafrost in Siberia. The analysis revealed thirteen new viruses never observed before, one of them, called Pandoravirus yedoma or the "zombie virus," dating as old as 48,500 years. If these viruses were liberated from their frozen tombs, they could engulf the entire planet and multiply their population.
"The situation would be much more disastrous in the case of plant, animal, or human diseases caused by the revival of an ancient unknown virus," the researchers noted in the paper. "It is therefore legitimate to ponder the risk of ancient viral particles remaining infectious and getting back into circulation by the thawing of ancient permafrost layers," they added. The oldest virus they discovered was buried beneath a lake, but others were discovered to be sleeping in the mummies of a Siberian wolf and a woolly mammoth. The greatest threat, as Claverie pointed out to CNN, is not the viruses they already know. The greatest threat is the viruses that they have no idea exist.
The immune system of humans is like a fortress that develops defenses according to the environment it survives and lives in. There are zillions of microbes already prowling. However, since their bodies are used to living with these microbes, they don’t really have a negative influence on humans. But the microbes in the permafrost have not been active for the past 50,000 years, which means humans don’t have sufficient immune defenses, and scientists don’t have appropriate cures to battle these unknown viruses if they are set free from the ice. “We now face a tangible threat, and we need to be prepared to deal with it. It is as simple as that,” Claverie warned in a conversation with The Guardian. The solution to prevent this calamity is to try to restrain the climate crisis.
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