
30,000-year-old giant virus 'comes back to life' - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26387276
======
Amorymeltzer
The scientist they interview, Jean-Michel Claverie, has done a lot of work in
the large DNA-virus world, along with Didier Raoult. One of his best papers
IMO
([http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/gb-2006-7-6-110](http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/gb-2006-7-6-110))
goes into some theories about viruses. Basically, these nucleocytoplasmic
large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) look quite a lot like a nucelus in their infected
amoeba targets. On some level, going back, who's to say that the nucleus
wasn't just some big, DNA virus that stuck around? The parallel to the
mitochondria/chloroplast theory is kind of neat to boot. Definitely worth a
read.

------
themartorana
Well this is a potential side-effect of global climate change/warming that I
had never considered... And I don't know this for sure, but off the cuff, I'm
betting neither have 7,999,999,000 or so of the 8 billion people on the
planet.

And I'm not talking about the Godzilla-esque viruses, but the possibly dormant
but not dead strains of smallpox, etc.

Great illustration though - we may not have eradicated any viruses on the
planet - just on the surface. (Paraphrase the article.)

~~~
rnovak
I always wonder where people get these numbers. From what I understand, census
bureaus, etc, still only say there are 7.3 billion people on Earth. Where are
you getting the other 700,000,000?

~~~
tizzdogg
Perhaps exact figures were not the point of the comment.

------
IvyMike
Sort of an aside, but Radiolab recently had an episode about the relatively
new class of giant "as big as bacteria" viruses. This appears to be one of
those. I found the episode fascinating.

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/shrink/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/shrink/)

------
mgalka
Good post. Though it doesn't really make the distinction that these giant
viruses are actually very different from normal viruses. They may have
actually "reverse-evolved" from bacteria, and may not even be related to
regular viruses.

For anyone who listens to podcasts, there is a great Radiolab about their
discovery.

------
Amorymeltzer
Might be worth noting that story is from March 2014.

------
hit8run
Okay this could be a new hollywood introduction to an end of the world
scenario. Hopefully we will make it to the end of our days without a zombie
outbreak or another end of the world scenario :D

~~~
harryf
Wasn't this the plot of Prometheus more or less?

------
dstyrb
"The Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the
darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame."

~~~
dasil003
Tell you what, if the oil companies unearth a Balrog I'll be joining
Greenpeace day and date.

~~~
dmd
I'd take one Balrog over what they've _actually_ unearthed.

------
xellisx
"It comes into the cell, multiplies and finally kills the cell. It is able to
kill the amoeba - but it won't infect a human cell."

Haven't there been brain eating amoeba's?

[http://www.webmd.com/brain/brain-eating-
amoeba](http://www.webmd.com/brain/brain-eating-amoeba)

------
personjerry
I think it's amazing because, well, what technology do we have that could
"come back to life" in 30,000 years frozen?

Nature showing how diverse and robust some of its work is.

------
thejaredhooper
Is there any reason to be worried about the ice caps harboring viruses that
could potentially wipe us out?

~~~
ctdonath
Well, since they're practically wiped out and we're not, I'm not too worried.

------
andrewstuart
I love it when scientists assure us of our safety.

~~~
personjerry
That's not really their job. There might be scientific facts that threaten us
and scientific facts that reassure us. To reveal these facts is the job of the
scientist.

------
lucideer
This reminds me of a very recent TV series

