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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!'"

6 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?

  3. in prehistoric Russia by zlives · · Score: 5, Funny

    the virus catches you

  4. 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?

  5. 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?

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!