Dormant Diseases Frozen In the Ice Are Waking Up (bbc.co.uk) 173
boley1 writes: Like a plot from a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) movie, evil is waking up as permafrost melts due to weather or natural, man-made, local, and/or global climate change. (Take your pick of any or all -- doesn't matter -- the plot and result is roughly the same.) According the the BBC, a 12-year-old boy died and at least twenty people were hospitalized after being infected by a disease (anthrax) that lay buried in the ice for 75 years. "The theory is that, over 75 years ago, a reindeer infected with anthrax died and its frozen carcass became trapped under a layer of frozen soil, known as permafrost," reports BBC. "There it stayed until a heatwave in the summer of 2016, when the permafrost thawed." In this case, bringing back the disease was accidental, but the story goes on to give examples of scientists (no indication of whether they are mad or not) purposefully seeing what ancient bacteria and virus they can resurrect from the ice. How many more diseases are lurking in the ice? Will The Andromeda Strain be released by meddling scientists or global warming?
First... (Score:5, Funny)
to die horribly in this sci-fi movie. ;)
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Your sacrifice is appreciated. If you are the first of many billions it would rapidly solve a whole lot of the problems facing our species. And introduce others of course, but hey, let's try to stay positive.
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There was a story a few years ago about scientists digging up frozen bodies in the arctic circle that were infected with the 1918 flu (the one that killed a huge percentage of the earth's population) in order to get samples of the virus to study.
I don't know what became of it since though. In that case though it wasn't burried or unearthed by melting - they just became accessible again thanks to more advanced modern technologies for traversing the frozen wastes.
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Ummm, 20 to 30 million (I forget the exact numbers) with a global population of a bit more than a billion. A couple of percent. It may have been the biggest killer in recent history - possibly since the Black Death - but "huge" is probably an overstatement.
I think you might be conflating two stories. Around 2000 an expedition in search of the lost "Franklin" expedition to find the No
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Thanks, it's always nice to get the fine details from my favorite slashdot scientist (especially when I had them wrong - it's amazing how the mind can muddle related things together that don't belong together sometimes).
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[Blush]
Um, right (Score:3, Funny)
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Anthrax spores survive at least 40 years under mild conditions at the soil, as the British discovered in their weapons testing island.
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Seem to remember a few decades ago that they found live Y-P in a couple of plague pits from the 1500's(might have been 1800's been a long time since I read the article) in the UK. It had survived by living inside other bacteria, and did so rather happily. There's an article this for anyone interested in reading about it. [asm.org]
Re:Um, right (Score:5, Informative)
Happens all the time. Just not in big cities. (Score:5, Insightful)
It may sound far-fetched, but it's possible. Anthrax spores are ridiculously hardy under natural conditions and can survive in their dormant state for years.
And it happens all the time, mostly outside the cities. Anthrax is also called "wool sorter's disease" and several other names. The spores are very hardy and can survive centuries of "ordinary' harsh environments. Changes in weather on a decade scale, which in "good years" bring vegetation and browsing animals to areas that are only intermittently fertile, can also bring an anthrax outbreak, resulting form an animal visit an infected site.
This is nothing new. It happens that it's currently a rare thing in the US (where it happens only a couple times a year - low compared to 16 cases of Bubonic Plague in 2015) and Northern Europe. But country folk are aware of it and take precautions. Anthrax, though very serious, is susceptible to antibiotics. The common form of the infection is a characteristic skin lesion (from a spore carried into a skin break), which is easy to diagnose and relatively benign (i.e. only one-in-five die if not treated, as opposed to about half WITH treatment for a Respiratory (inhaled spore) case, or a quarter to two-thirds for gastrointestinal (ate contaminated vegies or diseased meat).
(I heard of one case - not sure if it was anthrax or another long-term spore-forming disease - where someone doing a major cleanup of a historic house where people with the disease had been treated decades before - was apparently exposed when scraping the dirt out from between the cracks of the floorboards.)
Because it's almost unheard of in cities it's a great opportunity for global-warming alarmists to gin up another panic, now that they've got a case they can blame on melting ice. If they can get that meme going they can then yell about global warming at each good-weather outbreak - which means several times a year.
Re:Um, right (Score:5, Informative)
Probably the first myth to dispel is that anthrax is some magical thing conjured up by governments for biological warfare. It's not, it's a naturally occurring bacteria, most common in warmer climates of Southern Europe and Africa, but also present in North America too. It's typically carried by animals, both through contact, and through ingestion (which in turn allows it to be transmitted from prey, to predator), and of the roughly couple of thousand natural cases of human infection that occur across the world every year, many are in people working in industries such as tanning - i.e. working with infected animal hides.
Part the reason this natural bacteria was chosen for weaponisation was precisely it's resilience, and it's ease of infection, coupled with it's relatively high fatality rate. It shouldn't be surprising therefore that an animal carcass frozen in ice could still infect someone given it's properties of resilience, infection, and the fact that animal carcasses are exactly where you would most likely encounter it in the first place.
Given this, I'm intrigued to know if you still think it's ridiculous, and if so, why?
Movie Theme Song (Score:2)
Sure, he got it from anthrax from a 75-year old reindeer. Ridiculous.
I propose a theme song for this movie: Reindeer got run over by a permafrost! Do be do be do do do do do
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There's this strange notion that freezing or suffocating (storing something in a vacuum) something kills bacteria/mold. But its generally not true (yes there are microbes that die in the freezing cold, but they are the exception) - freezing things only slows down growth.
There's an old (but good) article Nasa wrote about this: https://science.nasa.gov/scien... [nasa.gov] - also one of the reasons sattelites and other spacecraft are made in clean rooms these days.
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Coverup for government bio-weapons testing on the public.
something something chemtrails something something
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Get back to the custody courtroom Alex Jones!
More idiotic click-bait (Score:4, Informative)
Anthrax isn't a "dormant disease." There's live anthrax running around all over the place. It's not some ancient disease that's suddenly re-emerging because of global warming. What nonsense.
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indeed, would you rather touch anthrax ridden poop fresh from the deer, or one cold from the permafrost. Guess which will have higher infection load.
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Ground squirrels south of me have mass deaths nearly every summer from plague. Lot of scary stuff in the wild.
Re:More idiotic click-bait (Score:5, Funny)
you think that's scary, squirrels chewed through the hard plastic box a few phone poles down the block to make a nest. Rainwater then shorted out the electronics and killed the internet connection! We then went 30 hours without internet! We were in hell!
Re:More idiotic click-bait (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More idiotic click-bait (Score:4, Funny)
Apologies, the writers of this post have been sacked.
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And those responsible for sacking the writers of GP are also sacked (as is anyone else who confuses moose and lamas)!
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as is anyone else who confuses moose and lamas...
Yeah, it's one thing to confuse a moose with a llama, but if you can't tell a priest from a beast (sorry, Mr. Nash), you got problems.
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still hoping to have chance to stand in line for the bag of ice from FEMA. thanks for your prayers.
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This is why I haven't left the house since 2003.
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In that case, let me tell you a little story about the things living in your keyboard...
For purely humanitarian reasons you understand...
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Fornit some fornus!
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In HIS keyboard ? I'm guessing large colonies of whatever eats discarded sperm cells..
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Barbara Hudson?
Re:More idiotic click-bait (Score:4, Informative)
During WW1, German agents [wikipedia.org] in American ports infected horses with anthrax to kill them before they arrived in France. It is not clear exactly how many horses died, but the number was roughly zero. It is not clear why their actions were so ineffective.
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Here's a guess: germ warfare is actually more difficult than people who haven't tried to do it would guess. There's a very good reason that British scientists in WW2 had to carry out experiments to learn how to successfully weaponise anthrax.
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I don't think this is clickbait. However, I suspect that the concerns in the article are a bit overblown.
Viruses are often highly specific in the hosts that they target, meaning that viruses that were formant in the permafrost might have a hard time finding suitable hosts in the present day. I'm skeptical that viruses that targeted Neanderthals could also infect modern humans.
The article also mentions antibiotic resistance, but I suspect that is also overblown. The problem is that bacteria develop the re
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>> Bacteria that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years wouldn't have encountered our man-made antibiotics and, therefore, probably aren't resistant to our antibiotics
However, modern man would have very little immunity so it'd make a lot of people sick quickly.
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Plenty of disease that attack humans can either live in animals or have close relatives that do, & flatheads are much more closely related to us than we are to ducks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Agree, I think the fact a modern bacteria has done this is merely evidence that there are deadly modern bacteria out there.
This doesn't state anything about long dormant deadly diseases wiping us out, on the contrary, it's unlikely that a particularly ancient disease would bare much threat to modern humans - the odds are our bodies have been fighting it's descendants off for the last few thousand or however many years, and vast amounts of the genomes of modern living things that are currently inactive are t
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Bubonic plague is endemic in squirrels in Los Angeles; that's why the Parks Dept. occasionally flea-sprays the parks, to prevent transmission to humans. However considering the vast and vibrant rat population in LA, as you say chances are most humans are genetically immune, or we'd see more than the very rare case. (In fact such immunity in surviving generations is one theory, somewhat backed by DNA evidence, why the great medieval plagues petered out in the first place.)
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But dude, GLOBAL WARMING.
not idiotic (Score:3)
"More idiotic click-bait (Score:5, Informative)"
Should have been moderated -1, stupid.
An interesting story. Sorry you aren't interested in biological news, but nevertheless, it's an interesting story related to science and technology and appropriate to a news website
Anthrax isn't a "dormant disease."
Anthrax isn't a "dormant disease." This particular anthrax outbreak, however, was from anthrax dormant while frozen in permafrost.
So, (Score:2)
Thinking Things Through (Score:4, Insightful)
You (and the BBC) want me to be freaked out because Permfrost is melting. Yet:
"The theory is that, over 75 years ago, a reindeer infected with anthrax died and its frozen carcass became trapped under a layer of frozen soil, known as permafrost,"
Ok, so either 75 years ago it was melted enough for the reindeer to sink in, or the permafrost that is melting is a mere 75 years old, not thousands of years old as the name "permafrost" is meant to imply.
Any time someone is proclaiming doom now I look for the agenda behind it - and sadly these days it is always there.
Re:Thinking Things Through (Score:5, Interesting)
Still thinking things through (Score:3)
So the stuff that is melting was not around 75 years ago, how much methane is that going to release exactly? Considering it spent much of the time frozen, not decomposing?
Or if it was melted before and then froze why would it release a lot of methane now it did not before?
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No, it's a clumsy attempt by some clueless editor to conflate two things.
The reindeer was frozen, now it's thawing, and anthrax was released. In addition, but not actually covered by this story, areas of permafrost are also thawing, and this may (conjecturally, but plausibly) also contain nasty bacteria or even viruses that have been frozen for thousands or even millions of years.
Yes, it's alarmism, yes it's got an agenda, but it's not as organised as you think. What you're seeing is the product of routine
35 degrees celcius (Score:1)
Hardly alarmism, when they have an example case. Albeit from a human made, 1941 mass cull and burial of animals to control an outbreak of Anthrax. It's still a case of a permafrost that they once believed would be forever, gone.
Not just gone, but its 35 degree heat wave in Siberia right now. That's gone with a fooking vengence.
SuperKendall makes the claim its all an agenda, well yeh, Superkendall does that for all global warming articles.
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its 35 degree heat wave in Siberia right now
I assume you mean it's 35 degrees Fahrenheit, and therefore relatively hot compared with 0 Fahrenheit?
This is not True AI (Score:2, Funny)
This is just diseases being frozen for a while, no where near to True AI.
We will never have true AI.
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I don't see the problem. We've had precious little of the natural kind either.
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thousands of years old as the name "permafrost" is meant to imply.
"Permafrost" means the material (water, dirt, rock and organic matter) remained frozen for two years or more.
The assumption is that a thin layer of permafrost accumulated atop the carcass over the last 75 years. Due to unusually warm conditions in recent years this thin layer of permafrost thawed or melted. This doesn't mean that the thin layer wasn't permafrost, nor does it mean that the reindeer sank into layers thousands of years old. It does mean that where warm conditions persist permafrost will con
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Re:Thinking Things Through (Score:5, Informative)
Permafrost does not extend to the surface. For any particular environment with permafrost, there is 1) a depth at which the maximum temperature does not exceed freezing (permafrost table), 2) a depth where the temperature does not vary with the season, and 3) a depth where geothermal heat keeps the temperature above freezing (permafrost base). Permafrost is what is between the permafrost table and base.
As new soil is laid down, any covered objects such as an animal carcass are deeper and deeper and eventually reach the depth of the permafrost table where they become permanently frozen. However, if seasonal highs are increasing fast enough then the permafrost table can be lowering faster than new soil can be added so that objects previously below the table are now above it and start thawing.
So there is no agenda, you just didn't know what "permafrost" really meant.
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I do know about you (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but most of us are not paid to comment on /.
You never post to Slashdot while at work?
Liar.
I wonder what else you've been laying about...
I don't get paid, I've been on Slashdot correcting idiots for free for decades now. It's a public service that I offer the world. And the proof of what I say lies in the fact that when I post a correction like my two reasonable questions, you have no answers - only insults. Thank you yet again for proving me right, example #1,000,049.
I'll let you
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I can think of another that might be better appreciated.
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Any time someone is proclaiming doom now I look for the agenda behind it - and sadly these days it is always there.
It's not "sadly," that's a good thing. It's when the doom is real that you really want to start worrying.
BBC doesn't say that (Score:1)
The BBC article does not say it "became trapped", the summary mis-quotes the BBC.
This was 1941, those will be buried contaminated carcasses from the 1941 outbreak. They didn't fall over and get covered with ice. The got rounded up into a pit, shot and covered over in the ice.
Re:Thinking Things Through (Score:5, Informative)
Any and all statements made have an agenda. What you just did is take a single anecdote about this story, namely that the permafrost layer is not constant (which no-one anywhere has ever claimed to begin with), and used that to arrive to the unfounded conclusion that there cannot possibly be a problem with the observed thawing of the permafrost layers across the arctic regions: [sciencedaily.com]
Yeah, those infernal scientists with their nasty 'agenda' of trying to understand the ecosystem better so we can actually do something about the issue. Surely all the data must be irrelevant, after all it'd be unfathomable to think that permafrost can still form in some places whilst its total amount is going down, and this entire process could still have vast negative feedback-loop effects because its self-accelerating. Everyone knows after all that either it's warming universally everywhere making frozen reindeer impossible, or it's not warming at all! Checkmate.
I was convinced of this based on all the data and research, but your astute observation that 75 years ago a patch in Siberia was cold enough to freeze (gasp!) has totally changed my mind on peer-reviewed research. The clever scientists thought they could get away by making silly claims about the climate being a complex system which can have extreme temperatures on both ends of the scale even as the total energy of the system is going up, but NO MORE thanks to brave warriors like you!
This singul
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Perhaps you missed this excellent posting: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
Or it is simply to complicated for you to grasp?
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I did not. it's an excellent post and I fully agree with it. It doesn't mean that the increasing thaw of permafrost is not an issue.
No, no it isn't, but apparently my attempt in sarcastic responding was.
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Recall that the 1930's were arguably the warmest decade on record. Something like half the record temperatures set by state in the United States date from the 30's. There was something of a peak in the early 40's, and then it actually cooled for around 30 years.
Or at least, that's what the temperature record showed until the late 1990s, when it was serially "adjusted" to cool the past relative to the present and emphasize the warming of the 80s (another warm decade) through early 90's.
So it isn't all th
Unfrozen? (Score:4, Funny)
Announcer: [ over SUPER ] "One hundred thousand years ago, a caveman was out hunting on the frozen wastes when he slipped and fell into a crevasse. In 1988, he was discovered by some scientists and thawed out. He then went to law school and became.. Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.
Jingle: "He used to be a caveman,
but now he's a lawyer.
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer!"
Announcer: Brought to you by.. Gas Plus - actually gives you gas, for those times when you feel like being the joker; and by National Escort Services - if we don't get a prostitute to your door in 15 minutes, you don't pay; and by Happy Fun Ball - still legal in 16 states - it's legal, it's fun, it's Happy Fun Ball! And now, tonight's episode of "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer".
[ open on interior, courtroom, the Judge banging her gavel ]
Judge: Mr. Cirroc, are you ready to give your summation?
Cirroc: [ stepping out] It's just "Cirroc", your Honor.. and, yes, I'm ready. [ approaches the jury box ] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you.
Judge: The jury will now retire to deliberate.
Jury Foreman: [ standing ] Your Honor.. we don't need to retire. Cirroc's words are just as true now as they were in his time. We give him the full amount.
[ the jury applauds Cirroc ]
Judge: Did you hear that, Mr. Cirroc?
Cirroc: [ cell phone to his ear ] Hang on a second.. [ to the judge ] I-I'm sorry, your Honor. I was listening to the magic voices coming out of this strange modern invention! [ smiles maliciously to the camera ]
Announcer: This has been "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer". Join us next week for another episode. Here's a scene. [ cut to Cirroc and his caveman family standing before a podium at a political rally ]
Cirroc: Thank you! Thank you very much, thank you! First of all, let me say how happy I am to be your nominee for the United States Senate! [ applause ] You know.. thank you.. I don't really understand your Congress, or your system of checks and balances.. because, as I said during the campaign - I'm just a caveman! I fell on some ice, and later got thawed out by scientists. But there is one thing I do know - we must do everything in our power to lower the Capitol Gains Tax. Thank you!
Announcer: Next time, on "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer".
Re:Unfrozen? (Score:4, Interesting)
You know.. thank you.. I don't really understand your Congress, or your system of checks and balances.. because, as I said during the campaign - I'm just a caveman!
Change it to a slum-lord instead of a lawyer and you have our current president.
More appropriate? (Score:2)
Wouldn't The Thaw [imdb.com] be a more appropriate move reference?
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Wouldn't The Thaw [imdb.com] be a more appropriate move reference?
I thought the story was click-bait for a British TV series on Sky (and Amazon) called Fortitude [arstechnica.com]. Totally same idea, except in the show the reindeer is a mammoth, and instead of anthrax it's larvae from an ice-age insect that infect people's brains. Coincidence?
On the plus side. (Score:2)
It gives us a chance to eradicate some of these ancient diseases for good.
Rather than going "Locked in the ice. Too much trouble!"
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Hey, we destroy them, they destroy us, toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. Either way we're gonna have a rumble. Break out the beer and pretzels and grab yourself a chair.
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Or it gives them a chance to eradicate us for good.
Either way, the world will be a better place, so what's to fear?
Straight Out of Fortitude (Score:1)
Fortitude is the almost scientifically sound TV show you should be watching [arstechnica.com]
The Talos Principle (Score:1)
Well that's the background story in the videogame "The Talos Principle", warming permafrost releases an ancient virus that infected primates in the distant past and kills off humanity too quickly for a vaccine to be created.
Reservoir (Score:2)
"It is believed to have spread from reindeer."
Right. So, they don't actually know what has been acting as a reservoir for the disease. This is similar to Ebola (pick a strain): the reservoir is bats! No, it's monkeys! No, it's in the water! Wait...
Well... (Score:2)
Personally, I'm hopeful that the permafrost will evaporate, and we'll have giant lizard monsters with lime jello tails roaming the streets. Just think how delicious that would be.
Forget movies (Score:4, Informative)
This was the plot of the beautiful and great game The Talos Principle!
If tardigrades can survive deep space and ..... (Score:1)
ultimate proof! (Score:2)
Ok, new plan (Score:5, Funny)
Melting the ice isn't cutting it. We need to start boiling the ice.
Bad reference - not "like a plot from MST3K" (Score:2)
LOL! Save the children (Score:2)
yes! (Score:2)
'Andromeda Strain' indeed! (Score:2)
I'm not losing any sleep (Score:2)
1. Pro tip, don't poke rotting corpses exposed by melting ice.
2. Bacteria and viruses exposed by melting snow (supposedly under sunny conditions) don't last very long under the UV bombardment, so even if the Andromeda Strain does get released, it will most likely be destroyed by UV radiation long before it can infect someone.
Hardly remote (Score:2)
(My emphasis.)
It's not particularly remote. The Yamal peninsula is just NE of the northern end of the Ural mountains, which are traditionally taken as the eastern border of Europe. And with the region's warming over the last few (and next many) decades, it's goign to get less remote.
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Heck, it wouldn't even have to attack humans at all - a global rubber-destroying plague would bring civilization to its knees. There's scarcely a machine on the planet that doesn't rely on rubber gaskets to continue functioning, and we wouldn't last long if our machines all suddenly stopped working.
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Sounds like a good solution to the Pacific ocean plastic garbage patch though.
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But it was geographically contained - which is why it never spread further, the mutation effectively neutralized it - and frankly it gave the book a rather anticlimactic ending. All the super-smart scientists fighting to find anything that can fight back against this extra-terrestrial contagion, hoping against hope to figure out some way to treat the infected... and suddenly it downs a fighter jet, has no way to spread further and is harmless to humans (including those already infected).
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"Rubber" in this context generally means any of dozens of polymers. Almost no machines use natural rubber, vulcanized or not.
Still, a plague destroying some of the more popular rubber substitutes, like neoprene, could be devastating.
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You'd have to survive nine months without any mechanized agricultural before that started to become a problem. Grocery store's aren't worth much when there's no food to fill them.
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One up the shitter and she won't drop a litter.
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Well, except for the *slight* matter of scale.
Estimates are that there's between 200,000 and 500,000 cubic miles of ice currently locked up in permafrost. That's a *lot* of ancient bacteria that are going to be rapidly reintroduced to the ecosystem.
Plus the fact that anything in caves or underground has been actively interacting with the surface the entire time, while frozen microbes have been in stasis, unaffected by the passage of time, so that deadly plagues of the distant past, that we've long since lo
Re:No different than digging/excavation except ... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's amazing what the past held. Inside the human genome lies, snipped into three separated pieces so it cannot become active the full dna of a virus. An ancient virus - very ancient because it appears to have no living relatives. But what we know about it suggests that, when this virus was active, it may well have been one of the deadliest virusses to ever exist. We know that because it is capable of completely and utterly masking itself from the human immune system. That's why it's there actually - we couldn't survive without it. The genes from that virus are uses by human fetuses to hide from their mother's immune system and avoid being attacked as foreign DNA. This also suggests that it exists throughout the mammal line and has been around as long as internal-birth. Perhaps it was acquired soon after in an evolutionary step that made internal-birth much more reliable, or perhaps it was already there and when the womb-mutation occurred it was easy for evolution to grab it as a solution. The cut up and neutralized virus was probably present in morganocodontid (the first known mammal - from the late Jurassic) but the plague could well have been around much earlier. It could have been plaguing dinosaurs, or even their predecessors.
Now imagine if that thing was reconstituted and escaped today... a virus no immune system can even see let alone develop a response to. Impossible to vaccinate again, impossible to defend against - even anti-virals may not work on it.
And this plague of plagues... is kept like the pieces of a museum fossil in every cell in your body right now.
I'm not all that worried about old diseases. (Score:2)
Plus the fact that anything in caves or underground has been actively interacting with the surface the entire time, while frozen microbes have been in stasis, unaffected by the passage of time, so that deadly plagues of the distant past, that we've long since lost resistance to, could be suddenly reintroduced.
I'm not all that worried about the revival of ancient diseases from melting permafrost wiping out all mammals, or even all humanity.
For starters, our ancestors already managed to survive them already.
Ice is cold. Caves are cool. (Score:2)
Little different than digging in mines, exploring caves. Or archaeology digs. Or deep sea exploring.
It just sounds "cool" because --- you know --- ice!
Well, ice is literally cool.
That does make a difference.
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>and eventually makes its way onto land.. ...where the results bear a terrifying resemblance to an election year...
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The opening of The Northwest Passage is a myth!
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