3 hours agoAwesome. Scientists discover 33 icy viruses between 14,000 and 400 years
Periskopi(5 years ago)
(5 years ago)A group of scientists have discovered frozen ancient viruses in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China, and most of them are not similar to anything seen until now. The findings, published in the Microbiome magazine on Wednesday, came from the ice core in 2015 for [...]
The findings, published Wednesday in Microbiome magazine, came from the ice nucleus of 2015, which scientists said began to freeze at least 14,400 years ago.
These glaciers were gradually formed, and along with dust and gas, many viruses were also stored in that ice”, said the Ji-Ping Zing, chief author and researcher at Ohio State University Byrd Pole and the Centre for Climate Research.
When researchers analyzed the ice, they found the genetic codes of 33 viruses. Of 33, the genetic code for four viruses revealed that they are part of a family of viruses that usually infect bacteria. The other viruses were young, meaning they had not been identified before.
Scientists have pointed out that they do not believe that viruses come from animals or humans but from earth or plants. They also said about half survived the ice.
“These are viruses that will thrive in extreme environments”, Matthew said Sullivan, coauthor of the study.
Sullivan said that technology used to study germs and viruses inside ice would lead to researching similar genetic sequences in other extreme icy environments, apparently on Mars. /
