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Threat of outbreak from microbes trapped in permafrost for millennia raised by increased Siberian shipping activity
Humanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat, scientists have warned. Ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak, they say.
Strains of these Methuselah microbes – or zombie viruses as they are also known – have already been isolated by researchers who have raised fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered – not by an illness new to science but by a disease from the distant past.
As a result, scientists have begun planning an Arctic monitoring network that would pinpoint early cases of a disease caused by ancient micro-organisms. Additionally, it would provide quarantine and expert medical treatment for infected people in a bid to contain an outbreak, and prevent infected people from leaving the region.
In evolutionary time 20,000 years is not long. With a 25 year average generation time, that’s 800 generations. At an estimated average rate of mutation of 64 per generation that would be 51,200 mutations in that amount of time across 3,117,275,501 base pairs (female).
This might sound like a lot but only 2% of the human genome encodes proteins. So approximately 1,024 mutations to encoding proteins are possible across 62,345,510 base pairs. However we know that many changes to encoding proteins are conserved so the true number is less.
This is really a tiny number of mutations. It may take out a few viruses but most of them will still easily infect humans today. The difference between the mutation rate of viruses and our own generation time is why dynamic immune systems have evolved. This allows an organism to develop immunity to the rapidly mutating pathogens without waiting for changes to the DNA.
As for if this is fear mongering or not: It’s a real probability because of the degree of preservation we have found on carcases in the permafrost. As the permafrost melts these carcases are exposed and transmission is possible.
Honestly the largest worry would for something like influenza. Able to jump multiple species and recombine into novel new types. We also don’t know how long influenza has been around.
Wow that’s awesome! Well. In an interesting way. Guess nmclimate change has more disasters in store for us then.