Not a teaser for a new science fiction thriller but the result of an experiment carried out by an international team of scientists.

As the Earth warms, permafrost—ground that has remained below freezing temperatures for millennia—is thawing. 

In addition to releasing methane into the atmosphere, the thawing soils are awakening viruses and bacteria that have lain inert for tens of thousands of years.

Conventional scientific wisdom held that there were few viruses or bacteria dormant in permafrost. 

However, in a 2021 paper, scientists documented anthrax bacteria rising out of the softening ground and infecting reindeer.

The latest investigation found a wider array of bugs that were awaiting the chance to revive.

The scientists lifted 13 viruses altogether, including three taken from the wool of a mammoth petrified 27,000 years ago and one from the fossilized intestine of a prehistoric Siberian wolf. 

The viruses belong to a family of bugs called, appropriately enough, pandora viruses, which are not capable of infecting humans.

The team thawed the bugs in a containment lab, sequenced their DNA, then selected a few varieties that would be capable of infecting only a specific amoeba, a single-celled organism.

Several of the viruses replicated inside the amoebas, splitting open their hosts and spewing new virus cells into the surrounding area.

TRENDPOST: The cells the scientists found pose no danger to humans. However, as it thaws, the permafrost covering much of the Arctic’s tundra may hold germs that can infect any number of plants and animals, including people.

This opens a new kind of health risk and a new field of research for virologists and for pharma companies that make vaccines.