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<br /><ul><li>A team of scientists from the US and China have discovered 28 previously unknown virus groups in samples from the oldest glacial ice on Earth. </li><li>As climate change melts the glacier, it's possible that these pathogens could get released into the atmosphere.</li><li>Even in the best-case scenario, the melting ice would still result in the loss of archives that could hold clues of Earth's climate in the past.</li></ul>It's hard enough to deal with diseases that plague the world today but things could get even worse with global warming. A team of researchers from the US and China has discovered 28 <keyword id="1092325" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="new-virus">new virus</keyword> groups in samples of ice from one of the planet's oldest glaciers. <br /><br />As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/ibm-believes-its-new-weather-forecasting-system-can-mitigate-shocks-from-climate-change/articleshow/72489643.cms">climate change</a> takes over Earth — melting ice could let those viruses out into the world.<br /><br />
  
  <div type="image" title="iceap2_edited" msid="73543353" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;A joint research team from the United States and China ventured to the Guliya Ice Cap in Tibet in 2015. They drew a core from the ice that was more than 1,000 feet long, the bottom of which dates back to more than half a million years ago.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>




<br />The best-case scenario is despite the melting ice, the viruses won't activate. Even so, it would be a grave loss of information.<br /><br />"At a minimum, [ice melt] could lead to the loss of microbial and viral archives that could be diagnostic and informative of past Earth climate regimes," said the study published in the pre-print server <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.03.894675v1">bioRxiv</a>.<br /><br />In the worst-case scenario, the melting ice would release the pathogens — good and bad — into the environment.<br /><br />
  
  <div type="image" title="icecap3_edited" msid="73543386" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;In 2015, a joint research team from the United States and China ventured to the Guliya Ice Cap in Tibet, and captured the oldest ice core ever drilled outside of the North and South Poles. The core contains more than half a million years of Earth&amp;#39;s climate history.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>





<br /><br /><strong>Ice from 15,000 years ago<br /></strong>The scientists took samples from two ice cores from the <keyword id="8630035" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="guliya-ice-cap">Guliya ice cap</keyword> on the northwestern Tibetan Plateau in China dating back nearly 15,000 years.<br /><br />In comparing the two ice-cores, scientists found that the microbes found within them varied drastically. This suggests that the two cores represent two very different climate conditions, according to the <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.03.894675v1">study</a>.<br /><br />
  
  <div type="image" title="icecap_edited" msid="73543428" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University, cuts an ice core retrieved from the Guliya Ice Cap in the Kunlun Mountains in Tibet in 2015.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>





<br />Only 28 of the viruses that the scientists found have never been seen before, however, overall they were able to detect 33 different virus groups.<br /><br />"Glaciers around the world are rapidly shrinking, primarily due to the anthropogenic-enhanced warming of Earth's ocean-atmosphere system, and this will release glacial microbes and viruses that have been trapped and preserved for tens to hundreds of thousands of years," said the study.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/you-can-experience-the-end-result-of-climate-change-today-with-virtual-reality/articleshow/72217525.cms">You can experience the end result of climate change today with virtual reality</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/climate-change-causes-australian-mammal-to-go-extinct/articleshow/68081948.cms">Climate change claims its first casualty in world's largest coral reef system</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/ibm-believes-its-new-weather-forecasting-system-can-mitigate-shocks-from-climate-change/articleshow/72489643.cms">IBM believes its new weather forecasting system can mitigate shocks from climate change</a></strong><br />

A pandora's box of 28 ancient viruses are trapped in glaciers — and climate change could set them free

<h2></h2><ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists revived viruses trapped in the ice caps in the Tibetan mountains 15,000 years ago.</li><li>Twenty-eight of these ancient viruses were unknown to <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>.</li><li>They are unlikely to be dangerous to humans, and probably affected plants.</li></ul><p>Scientists have been able to revive 33 types of ancient viruses, which are thought to have been frozen in the ice of the Guliya ice cap in the Tibetan Plateau 15,000 years ago.</p><p>Of those, 28 were unknown to science. </p><p>The viruses, which were found in an ice core collected in 2015, were able to survive in the ice for thousands of years.</p><p>However, these viruses are unlikely to be harmful to humans, as their genetic makeup suggests they would have more likely originated from soil or plants, not animals or humans.</p><p>The findings were published i<a href="https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-021-01106-w">n the peer-reviewed journal Microbiome last month.</a> </p><h2>Older viruses, and more complex organisms, have been revived from the ice before</h2><p>Although reviving ancient viruses sounds like the start of an apocalypse movie, there's little need to worry. The process has been carried out before with no negative consequences.</p><p>In 2014, scientists found a virus thought to be 30,000 years old inside a tiny animal called a protozoan, frozen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-giant-viruses-fozen-in-permafrost-2014-3">in Siberian permafrost.</a></p><p>The virus is related to, but distinct from, a type of virus found today. </p><div type="image" title="ancient giant virus ressurected" height="900" width="1200" msid="85067650" hostid="261"></div><p>In a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-found-live-viruses-in-30000-year-old-permafrost-2015-9">study published in 2015, </a>another virus, named Mollivirus sibericum, was identified and revived from the same sample.</p><p>More complex, ancient organisms have also been revived from ice.</p><p>Earlier this year, scientists published a study in which they thawed<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animal-revived-after-24000-years-in-ice-could-reproduce-2021-6"> a tiny worm-like animal called a Bdelloid rotifer</a>, captured in Siberian ice 24,000 years ago. The rotifer, pictured below, was immediately able to eat and reproduce.</p><div type="image" title="rotifer" height="450" width="600" msid="85067653" hostid="261"></div><h2><keyword id="141368" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="microbes">Microbes</keyword> freed from thawing ice could be harmful, but more recent ones are a bigger cause for worry</h2><p>The scientists who identified 28 new viruses in the ice said the findings could teach us about the effect of climate change on viruses. </p><p>"We know very little about viruses and microbes in these extreme environments," said Lonnie Thompson, an author on the study and scientist at the Byrd Polar and Climate <keyword id="15509" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Research">Research</keyword> Center.</p><p>"How do bacteria and viruses respond to climate change? What happens when we go from an ice age to a warm period like we're in now?" he said.</p><p>As climate change warms the glaciers and ice caps around the world, more microbes captured in the ice, like viruses and bacteria, are at risk of being released.</p><p>But microbes that caused modern recent epidemics prompt the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up">most concern</a>. </p><p>One chilling example is an outbreak in Russia that happened after a heatwave in 2016.</p><p>A 12-year-old boy died and at least twenty people were hospitalized from <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36951542">catching anthrax</a>.</p><p>Officials at the time said that they believe the bacteria had been released from a frozen reindeer carcass that was trapped under Siberian permafrost since the last outbreak, which was 75 years before, in 1941.</p><p>"Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark," evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie at Aix-Marseille University in France, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up">told the BBC in 2017</a>.</p><p>"Pathogenic viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past," he said.</p>

28 prehistoric viruses unknown to science were found in a glacial ice cores. They are thought to be around 15,000 years old.

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A pandora's box of 28 ancient viruses are trapped in glaciers — and climate change could set them free

Prabhjote Gill

28 prehistoric viruses unknown to science were found in a glacial ice cores. They are thought to be around 15,000 years old.

Marianne Guenot

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