Long Frozen Zombie Virus Discovered In Frozen Lake
If anyone had a “frozen zombie virus” on your doomsday bingo card, you just won. Scientists are now afraid of this new virus that has been trapped under ice for the better part of 50,000 years in a lake in Russia. However, with the threat of global warming thawing this ice at an alarming rate, more harmful pathogens could be close to escaping and infecting the entire world.
Jean-Marie Alempic is the lead microbiologist that has published a preliminary paper via the French National Centre for Scientific Research. In this paper, Alempic’s research has stated that the rapidly melting ice in the Northern Hemisphere could be, “releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years.” Even more surprising, the team of researchers is also purposely awakening some of the dormant zombie virus threats so that they can be studied.
Apparently, one of the zombie virus threats was stated to be around 48,500 years old, as it was taken from Siberian permafrost. This discovery has shattered the previous record of a 30,000-year-old virus being discovered back in 2013 by the same team. This now oldest virus has been dubbed Pandoravirus yedoma, which is a callback to the myth of Pandora, whose curiosity led her to open a box that contained nothing but terrible things.
It is a bit odd that this zombie virus, dubbed Pandoravirus yedoma, is purposely being woken up to be studied. The whole idea of that myth is that opening a box out of sheer curiosity led to horrors, which is now being done so by Alempic’s team. We understand wanting to study these viruses so that a cure could be determined, but isn’t keeping the dormant ancient viruses below ice the safest option?
The zombie virus that has been found is said to be highly infectious and has now been labeled a “health threat” which goes back to the question of awakening it in the first place. Still, we suppose that is the job of a microbiologist, to study viruses of all kinds to determine cures or preventative measures. The new Pandoravirus was located in Yukechi Alas in Yakutia, Russia, but there are reports of more of these viruses being found in the confines of animal parts like mammoth fur and intestines of Siberian wolves.
The current research is determining what effects heat, light, oxygen, and other environmental factors have on the zombie virus. Well, if the world gets locked into another pandemic, where a cure cannot be so easily found, we might have to look to the Northern Hemisphere at these dormant infectious viruses being released.
To be fair, the research being done on this new zombie virus is to prevent another pandemic from happening, as the previously mentioned environmental effects are being tested currently. The global warming issue might be too drastic to stop worldwide, leaving many harmful pathogens to be released into our ecosystem, which could also cause a huge pandemic should these viruses not be studied given any sort of cure. We commend Alempic’s research team for putting itself in harm’s way to study these infectious viruses, and we hope more research is done so that we aren’t all turned into mindless zombies.
