Terrifying, scientists have revived a 48,500-year-old virus

PARIS – Melting permafrost can pose a danger to humanity. Scientists warn that after reviving an ancient virus froze for tens of thousands of years.

‘Such viruses are still capable of infecting living organisms,’ said the international team after observing a total of nine ancient viruses found in Siberian permafrost infecting amoebae in the laboratory.

“The oldest viruses recently discovered are nearly 50,000 years old,” the team said.

“48,500 years is a world record,” Jean-Michel Claverie, a team member and researcher at the University of Aix-Marseille in France, told New Scientist.

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His team studied a total of seven ancient viruses in their latest study. The group released a preprint of their work in early November.

The group, which includes scientists from Russia, France and Germany, has already managed to revive two other ancient viruses, which are 30,000 years old.

The virus that the team found and reanimated is thought to be the oldest ever reanimated.

However, some other researchers claim to have revived the bacteria, which are said to be up to 250 million years old.

All of the viruses the team reanimated belonged to the pandoravirus family, a group of giant viruses capable of infecting only single-celled organisms such as amoebae.