Permafrost is permanently frozen ground that covers one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere
French scientists have reportedly revived a 48,500-year-old "zombie virus" buried under a frozen lake in Russia. According to New York Post, these scientists have sparked fears of yet another pandemic
Here are five points on the revived virus:
- Global warming is irrevocably thawing enormous swathes of permafrost - permanently frozen ground that covers one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere. This has had the unsettling effect of “releasing organic material frozen for up to a million years”, including deadly germs.
- Scientists have, perhaps strangely, revived some of these so-called “zombie viruses” from the Siberian permafrost.
- While the Pandoravirus was discovered at the bottom of a lake in Yukechi Alas, Yakutia, Russia, others have been discovered everywhere from mammoth fur to Siberian wolf intestines.
- Scientists believe that COVID-19-like pandemics will become more common in the future as melting permafrost releases long-dormant viruses like a microbial Captain America, as per New York Post.
- The newly-thawed virus might only be the tip of the epidemiological iceberg as there are likely more hibernating viruses yet to be discovered.
