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Scientists Revive a Giant 30,000 Year Old Virus From Ice

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-saw-this-movie dept.

bmahersciwriter writes "It might be terrifying if we were amoebae. Instead, it's just fascinating. The virus, found in a hunk of Siberian ice, is huge, but also loosely packaged, which is strange says evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie: 'We thought it was a property of viruses that they pack DNA extremely tightly into the smallest particle possible, but this guy is 150 times less compacted than any bacteriophage [viruses that infect bacteria]. We don't understand anything anymore!'"

11 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Pray or Prey? by JimSadler · · Score: 5, Funny

    just hope that this bug is not designed to attack large, warm blooded, animals.

  2. 30,000 year old nope by dgp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Revive a 30,000 year old virus, they said. It'll be fun they said.

    1. Re:30,000 year old nope by MaksimS · · Score: 5, Funny

      What could possibly go wrong?

    2. Re:30,000 year old nope by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 4, Funny

      What could possibly go wrong?

      Hey, are my eyes supposed to be going black?

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      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. in prehistoric Russia by zlives · · Score: 5, Funny

    the virus catches you

  4. Re:I think I've... by Xiver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you like The Thing then read this. It is a short story from The Thing's point of view.

    --
    10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
    20: GOTO 10
  5. lol by hamburger+lady · · Score: 4, Funny

    "We don't understand anything anymore!" says the guy reviving a 30,000 year-old virus. sheesh.

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    Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
  6. 30,000 years old? by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm surprised this thing is very different to modern viruses given that it's *only* 30K years old. I appreciate these things are always evolving, but I would've thought they'd have done most of their evolving in the previous 3-billion years or whatever. So presumably, being big wasn't a problem for a virus until relatively recently?

    1. Re:30,000 years old? by Mortiss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, these viruses may have found a relatively safe niche in a biosphere, where large genome is not a huge disadvantage and simply stayed that way. These giant viruses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimivirus) seem to have acquired a large number of metabolic genes from their hosts, which in case of human viruses would be very disadvantageous, since in this environment large = easier to detect and eradicate.

  7. We don't know why it isn't densely packed. by Chas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's possible that this one was warped by its environment.
    Another possibility is that we're looking at a sign of evolution here.

    It's possible that 30,000 years ago, the environment (and carriers) could support the existence of larger, loosely packed viruses.

    Then with the advance of medicine and sanitation (and possibly changes in climate), that behemoths like this simply weren't viable anymore. They were too fragile (or just too obviously large) to withstand the immune responses in healthier, cleaner hosts.

    As such, these oversized viruses died off the same way various megafauna did. Their ecological niche was either stressed (or closed). Thus the only survivors were smaller, more compact variants.

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    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  8. Re:Wow by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

    So no one who commented even bothered to read the SUMMARY? Is the internet full of fruit flies? THIS VIRUS CANNOT ATTACK MAMMALS, IT GOES FOR AMOEBAE YOU ILLITERATE ADHD PATIENTS!

    Then how come we haven't heard from the researchers for the past couple of weeks?

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!