Hundreds of U S cities already adopted climate plans What happened? usatoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from usatoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Close
In core samples taken from glacier ice in Tibet, a team of microbiologists discovered 33 distinct viruses dating back to the Pleistocene. They believe the viral communities were active on glacier surfaces before they were frozen. Some of them are still active within the ice cores.
The Guliya viruses discovered in the ice cap are assumed to have infected the microorganisms that lived on the same ice. The researchers aren t sure when those infections occurred-whether they were most active before the ice cap arose or only thrived after it did. Their comprehensive study of the viruses ecology was published in the journal Microbiome recently with the title
Scientists Discover Almost 30 Unknown Viruses Frozen In Ice faceofmalawi.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from faceofmalawi.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“These glaciers were formed gradually, and along with dust and gases, many, many viruses were also deposited in that ice,” said Zhi-Ping Zhong, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Centre.
“The glaciers in western China are not well-studied, and our goal is to use this information to reflect past environments. And viruses are a part of those environments.”
When the team analysed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses. Four of those viruses were previously known to science, but at least 28 of them are novel.
However, they said the concentrations were much lower than would be expected in the same quantity of unfrozen soil or sea water, for example.
Scientists uncover 28 new viruses frozen in ice for thousands of years thehill.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehill.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.