33 pathogens have been discovered by American scientists in a glacier in Tibet. Among the latter, perfectly preserved, some had never been detected, underlines a study published in the journal Microbiome.
The latter had been made prisoners of ice, dust, gases… To the point of being found in perfect condition to be studied by researchers. The study points out that digging up these extremely old pathogens (they are around 15,000 years old) is particularly interesting to understand the history and evolution of viruses on the planet. They had been prisoners for so long that the search led to a drilling up to 6.7 kilometers below sea level.
Understanding the evolution of viruses with global warming
The interest is that through them, their composition, their reaction to the air… we can trace concrete elements which make it possible to imagine the climatic conditions of the time in which they prospered. And also to understand how the climate has evolved since then. If they are still “alive”, it is thanks to having been frozen, which already suggests thatthey were active in extreme temperature environments.
This could help understand how bacteria and viruses respond to global warming, how to respond to melting glaciers and what they might release. So many questions that require answers in the midst of a pandemic, and in view of the 4% mass loss by the 220,000 glaciers in the world over the past twenty years.
Source: Glacier ice archives nearly 15,000-year-old microbes and phages, Microbiome, July 20, 2021
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