Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumGiant virus revived from ancient permafrost
Fortunately, the new virus, named Pithovirus sibericum, infects amoebas and is not harmful to humans.
But its ability to become infectious again after so many millenniums is a warning, writes Jean-Michel Claverie at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at Aix-Marseille University and his colleagues in a new study published Monday..
"The revival of such an ancestral amoeba infecting virus suggests that the thawing of permafrost either from global warming or industrial exploitation of circumpolar regions might not be exempt from future threats to human or animal health," they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
WhiteTara
(29,705 posts)glinda
(14,807 posts)WhiteTara
(29,705 posts)not amoebas...
FailureToCommunicate
(14,013 posts)Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)It was the first thing that crossed my mind.
paleotn
(17,912 posts)....I like the '82 version best of all.
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)The "thing" broke out of his chest. Took several days and body casts to make that scene.
FailureToCommunicate
(14,013 posts)The Vance Norris character?
Very cool to be related to such an accomplished actor!
raccoon
(31,110 posts)glinda
(14,807 posts)Thus releasing methane gases that will kill everything.
NICE GOING ASSHATS!!!!!!!!!!!
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)Proud Liberal Dem
(24,412 posts)stuntcat
(12,022 posts)Any hope for all the rest of the life forms, I mean.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts).... we can do something about overpopulation
or we can leave it up to Mother Nature. But her solution usually involves famine and plagues.
The Blue Flower
(5,442 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Auggie
(31,167 posts)oh boy ...
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)pscot
(21,024 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)I suggest there could be more deaths caused by viruses than by starvation as the climate changes. Both are ugly ways to die. As are by cancer and bullets.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)That's where we get McCain and Rumsfeld.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)now there's an amoeba sucking virus for ya.
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)And he has that evil, virus-like quality to him.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)AnnieBW
(10,425 posts)Yeah, "The Andromeda Strain".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain
raven mad
(4,940 posts)permafrost in action. It really does encapsulate everything good - or bad - including "black plague".
It makes the ground kinda mushy in spring. If you get a spring.
Triana
(22,666 posts)one way or another. They just don't know when to stop.
AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 4, 2014, 01:45 AM - Edit history (1)
The evidence is abundant for the destructive side effects of global climate change, which is exacerbated by human activities, and the life-threatening effects of massive environmental pollution, such as ocean acidification, and the poisons added daily to our air, water, and food.
The blame for poisoning our world rests mainly on the bankers and capitalists of Wall Street and their lackeys in government and the media who do their bidding.
Examples of stupid humans abound, such as the Creationists who believe that their deity would plant fossils for humans to find, fossils which demonstrate that the Earth has existed for (at least) millions of years, just to test the Creationists faith in their bible when it claims that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old.
However, the wasteful extraction and use of fossil fuels, and the devastation that it causes, is solely the fault of The Powers That Be.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Did they forget the "Yet" part?
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)ancient virus released upon humans, and the dead start rising...
defacto7
(13,485 posts)But joke at will if it makes you feel better and you've got nothing better to do.