15,000-Year-Old Viruses Discovered In Tibetan Glacier Ice (osu.edu) 133
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ohio State News: Scientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China. Most of those viruses, which survived because they had remained frozen, are unlike any viruses that have been cataloged to date. The findings, published today in the journal Microbiome, could help scientists understand how viruses have evolved over centuries. For this study, the scientists also created a new, ultra-clean method of analyzing microbes and viruses in ice without contaminating it.
The researchers analyzed ice cores taken in 2015 from the Guliya ice cap in western China. The cores are collected at high altitudes -- the summit of Guliya, where this ice originated, is 22,000 feet above sea level. The ice cores contain layers of ice that accumulate year after year, trapping whatever was in the atmosphere around them at the time each layer froze. Those layers create a timeline of sorts, which scientists have used to understand more about climate change, microbes, viruses and gases throughout history. Researchers determined that the ice was nearly 15,000 years old using a combination of traditional and new, novel techniques to date this ice core. When they analyzed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses. Four of those viruses have already been identified by the scientific community. But at least 28 of them are novel. About half of them seemed to have survived at the time they were frozen not in spite of the ice, but because of it.
The researchers analyzed ice cores taken in 2015 from the Guliya ice cap in western China. The cores are collected at high altitudes -- the summit of Guliya, where this ice originated, is 22,000 feet above sea level. The ice cores contain layers of ice that accumulate year after year, trapping whatever was in the atmosphere around them at the time each layer froze. Those layers create a timeline of sorts, which scientists have used to understand more about climate change, microbes, viruses and gases throughout history. Researchers determined that the ice was nearly 15,000 years old using a combination of traditional and new, novel techniques to date this ice core. When they analyzed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses. Four of those viruses have already been identified by the scientific community. But at least 28 of them are novel. About half of them seemed to have survived at the time they were frozen not in spite of the ice, but because of it.
Wait, I've seen this movie before (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty sure this is how the zombie apocalypse starts...
Re:Wait, I've seen this movie before (Score:4)
At least this research does not involve a Chinese lab.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Well, for God's sake, let's not let them have samples.
For that matter, is there any real reason not to destroy them, we've seen the havoc that "novel" viruses can cause.
Re:Wait, I've seen this movie before (Score:4, Insightful)
The majority of viruses are bacteriophages, which infect bacteria and are harmless against multicellular animals. IIRC most of the rest infect plants, those which infect vertebrates are a slim minority and primate-affecting viruses are few and far between. That most of them are unknown isn't a surprise, most of the viruses in existence today are still unknown as well because there are a **LOT** of them and they're hard to study.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, for God's sake, let's not let them have samples.
For that matter, is there any real reason not to destroy them, we've seen the havoc that "novel" viruses can cause.
It is more likely that these viruses have already been genetically accounted for as part of the past. A reverse version of this is something I've wondered about, in relation to say, the wooly mammoth they are trying to recreate from DNA. An animal that hasn't been around for 10K years or more is not going to have had exposure to all of the virus' that have evolved since it's time.
In Tibet, so China has them (Score:2)
Well, for God's sake, let's not let them have samples.
The samples are from a Tibetan glacier. China has already taken over Tibet, they have all the samples they want.
Re: (Score:3)
I mean, don't downplay the possibility, the research needed to turn the ancient viruses into modern Triple Zombie Brain Munchmunch variations has to take place SOMEWHERE, and at this stage of the game it could be China just as easily as any other country with advanced medical facilities! For all we know, labs across the world have already begun researching zombie virus, and I feel it's premature to call a winner yet...
Re: (Score:2)
Because there is such a large variance between the wild and the human-contagious versions of the virus (almost 5%) it almost certainly lived in some other animal for a time until it had mutated sufficiently to infect humans. Because of the types of mutations the University of Ottawa believe the intermediate host to be feral dogs, others contest that and propose pangolins or some other animal. I'm not a specialist so can't really judge the merits of any of them, but the dog host seems most reasonable to me
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If I understand this correctly SARS-CoV is 96% similar to a bat coronavirus.
https://www.frontiersin.org/ar... [frontiersin.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The most probable explanation I have heard is that deforestation levels in China were forcing man and creatures who would otherwise never be in the vicinity of humans into closer proximity, and someone was shat upon by a bat that was carrying the virus and who had not properly washed themselves before touching their face.
How are you measuring probability here?
Not some random lab, a lab with safety problems (Score:2)
The fact that the first superspreader event happened so geographically near a research facility is circumstantial ...
Its not just any random lab. Its a lab whose staff told visiting US diplomats that there were safety problems, inadequately trained staff, etc and asked for help. This was before the covid outbreak. Plus it was a lab doing gain of function research on bat corona virus, precisely what is believed to be the source.
And now even the WHO is admitting the past investigations into the lab theory were entirely flawed and that lab theory remains a thoroughly plausible option
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wait, I've seen this movie before (Score:5, Insightful)
You believe such description is a work of mental gymnastics but it is rather a simple description of the case. Evidence exists of Coronavirus earlier in 2019 - in Spain from March [reuters.com], and in Brazil in November [sciencedirect.com].
Okay, stop for a moment and think about how absurd that is. The notion that such a rapidly spreading virus with such a high R0 had been spreading since March is just comical. There are only two plausible possibilities there: either A. they accidentally contaminated the samples or B. they used a low-quality test that had a cross reaction with a non-novel coronavirus. There's almost no chance that it was spreading for nine months without anyone noticing. In most countries, the time from the first known case to the first death has been about two weeks.
Brazil is only slightly more plausible, but still very unlikely for the same reason. This virus spreads rapidly through an unvaccinated population even without any superspreader events, with an R0 in the mid 2s. The first death in Brazil was two weeks after the first death in China, and only about two weeks before the first U.S. death (which was actually a couple of weeks before the first definitively known case). For COVID-19 to have started in Brazil a month before China would mean that it took 2 weeks from the first known case in China to the first death, but spread for eight weeks undetected in Brazil. That seems fairly unlikely. A month, maybe. Two months? That's a big stretch.
The other timeline, though, where someone brought it from China to Brazil, lines right up with what one would expect; the first death was about two weeks after when there were enough infected people in China to make transmission to another country start to be likely.
This means that the Wuhan event was simply the first relaized event. More generally, it is well established that emergence of new viruses is tied to land use changes [sciencedirect.com].
Established? The seventh word in the title of that journal article is "hypotheses". Try again.
Land use changes do increase contact between humans and wildlife, and in theory, that could increase the risk of cross-species virus transmission, but IMO, transmission through domesticated animals is a more likely route.
Don't get me wrong. It is possible that it did exist in other countries before it existed in China. But that if the virus in other countries was too weak to become established and start spreading rapidly in the wild enough to cause any deaths, that suggests that it got its start multiple times in multiple places, which implies that its spread was deliberate. I think it is much, much more likely that those test results were simply erroneous.
Or the other possibility is that the Chinese government was covering up the spread of this virus in China for months, and that it's entirely a fluke that somebody finally spilled the beans, and an even bigger fluke that nobody spread the virus to a country with a first-world medical system until late 2019. But again, it's more likely that the test results were simply wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If those results were real, we would have gene sequenced them so they could be slotted into the variant tree.
It is unclear whether the results were honest mistakes or intentional lies, but it is certain that they were not real.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, the Spanish and Italian results are a year old, yet no one has bothered sequencing them. I.e. fake.
Re: (Score:2)
Appeal to absurdity is not a valid defense, You need tto show precisely why such a situation could not have occurred or else prove something else which is mutually exclusive to it.
No, but Occam's razor still applies.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How so? You have a novel strain of a virus that suddenly appears within single-digit miles of one of single-digit places in the world where that very virus is being studied. What are the odds of that being a coincidence?
The simplest explanation, by far, is that someone working in that lab accidentally got exposed — probably while taking guano samples from some cave — and that someone scrubbed the data so that the connection between that lab and the virus would not be discovered. Every other
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the simpler explanation is that it didn't come from the lab at all. Sometimes shit just happens (no pun intended).
And you think *I'M* the one doing mental gymnastics.
Your proposition requires, taking on mere faith, that there was some sort of an active conspiracy at the lab to cover up any evidence that the virus came from there.
The simpler explanation, lacking any actual eviden
Re: (Score:2)
Your proposition requires, taking on mere faith, that there was some sort of an active conspiracy at the lab to cover up any evidence that the virus came from there.
I said nothing about a conspiracy. Covering it up requires only that at least one person with access to the data decided to cover up evidence or was pressured into doing so by some government official. And we're talking about research happening in a country that initially tried to cover up the existence of the virus by silencing the doctor who first reported it, without which it might not have reached pandemic proportions in the first place, so giving that government the benefit of the doubt should be a n
Re: (Score:2)
And precisely what so-called "known" cover up are you referring to? Careful now... don't mistake hearsay for fact.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to be kidding me [bbc.com].
Not hearsay. They actively tried to stop the spread of information about the virus. That fact is uncontested.
Re: (Score:2)
That was the Chinese government making that call, not the Wuhan virus lab itself.
And the reason they did so wasn't because they wanted to avoid being blamed for it, it was because it was not initially apparent that the disease was transmissable so easily, and the government wished to avoid starting an international panic. Almost as soon as it was conclusively established that human-to-human transmission was possible, China announced its existence to the world at the end of December in 2019.
This delay
Re: (Score:2)
That was the Chinese government making that call, not the Wuhan virus lab itself.
I never said the Wuhan lab covered anything up. I said that the country (i.e. the government) actively tried to cover it up. You don't get to shift the goalposts and declare victory. It doesn't work like that.
And the reason they did so wasn't because they wanted to avoid being blamed for it, it was because it was not initially apparent that the disease was transmissable so easily, and the government wished to avoid starting an international panic. Almost as soon as it was conclusively established that human-to-human transmission was possible, China announced its existence to the world at the end of December in 2019.
You don't try to force doctors to sign a statement claiming that they lied about the existence of a disease cluster just to avoid a panic. They went way further than just asking people to not say things in an effort to limit the spread of information. Given that sort of coercion, it's very hard to
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't trying to shift the goalposts... this was about the possibility of a lab leak. I evidently wrongly assumed that you were referring to some kind of cover up at the lab.
Yes, it's more feasible that the Chinese government tried to cover up such a leak, but if that's the case, investigating the lab itself isn't liable to turn up anything with a smoking gun at all.
Is the scenario you presented at least plausible enough to have happened? Yes. But there's no evidence to support it... and coming t
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't trying to shift the goalposts... this was about the possibility of a lab leak. I evidently wrongly assumed that you were referring to some kind of cover up at the lab.
A cover-up, just a cover-up of the lab, rather than at or by the lab. :-)
Yes, it's more feasible that the Chinese government tried to cover up such a leak, but if that's the case, investigating the lab itself isn't liable to turn up anything with a smoking gun at all.
Depends on how good they were at covering it up and on whether they had physical access. Possible smoking guns might include off-site backups, physical samples that don't exist in the database, data in unallocated disk blocks, unerased data in wear-leveling-spared flash pages....
Is the scenario you presented at least plausible enough to have happened? Yes. But there's no evidence to support it... and coming to that conclusion that it is somehow made more likely simply because the Chinese government was suppressing information about the virus for the first month and a half or so is basing that leaning upon emotional biases rather than on scientifically reputable evidence.
Proximity is evidence. It's circumstantial, sure, and certainly not enough do something stupid like calling it the "China virus" or accusing the scientists o
Re: (Score:2)
There are other reasons for investigations into the lab that have nothing whatsoever to do with the likelihood of COVID19 originating there. Again, the coronaviruses being researched at that lab were too evolutionarily removed from the precise genome for COVID19 for it to have come from the lab or any of its workers. It is, admittedly, *possible*, but extremely unlikely.
And the fact that China initially covered up the existence of the virus does not really change that. The reasons China had for not r
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect contamination in the Spanish case, however we probably shouldn't assume that the virus would have to be either as contagious or serious as it had become by December 2019. Mild Covid symptoms are fairly generic for a respiratory virus and few people are always getting sick somewhere with identified viruses.
It's a situation that's ripe for speculation, because the virus emerged in a place that doesn't have a free press or free scientific inquiry. This makes many speculations essentially impossible
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect contamination in the Spanish case, however we probably shouldn't assume that the virus would have to be either as contagious or serious as it had become by December 2019. Mild Covid symptoms are fairly generic for a respiratory virus and few people are always getting sick somewhere with identified viruses.
The thing is, viruses usually get less deadly over time, not more. More contagious, but less deadly. So I'd expect deaths traced to COVID anywhere that the virus had been, assuming a level of contagiousness that wouldn't burn itself out within two or three people. And if the level of contagiousness is that low, the question becomes how it got there in the first place, because the odds of it getting there should be exceptionally low.
Contamination seems likely, but I wouldn't rule out cross-reactivity. Th
Re: (Score:3)
The monotonically less-deadly-over-time thing is not a hard and fast rule; there have been a number of infectious agents that have become at least temporarily more deadly -- Ebola, for example evolved a particularly deadly and infectious strain during the West African Ebola outbreak, although that strain is now believed to be extinct. Another example is the 1918 flu; the first wave was relatively mild, but the second wave deadly. The third wave was less deadly than the second but more than the first.
While
Re: (Score:2)
As for cross-reactivity, that might happen with an immunoassay but they usually use PCR for those sewage studies. It would have to be a very closely related virus to show positive on PCR.
True, but I'm pretty sure there was also one fairly major PCR test equipment manufacturer whose tests gave wildly incorrect results in the early days because of a software bug. I can't remember the details, though (that was well over a year ago), and I can't seem to find any info about it.
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't mental gymnastics, they are evidence-based conclusions.
There is a research lab in Wuhan. The first superspreader event happened in Wuhan. These two events *MAY* be related, but there is precisely zero reputable sources to verify it. Everything is based on conspiracy theories, which occasionally might turn out to be true, but that's not a reason to conclude that it *IS* true until some actual evidence turns up to support it. This will require that evidence be uncovered that one of the viru
Re: (Score:2)
The research lab in Wuhan is there to study viruses unique to Wuhan so the events are related even if the lab is not the source.
Re: (Score:2)
No more so than the fact that a bank which does not get robbed is related to a bank that does. The relationship is circumstantial, and not indicative of some underrlying factor that drives it.
If any kind of tenable relationship exists between the virus lab and the first known superspreader event, then the onus is on those who would allege such a relationship to show it. No such evidence has been forthcoming as of this time. The allegations are dependant upon the assumption that certain conspiracy the
Re:Wait, I've seen this movie before (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
However, the various lies about the laboratory are making it look guilty. Like "no live bats were kept at the lab", well except there were.
It is possible that the lab is the subject of a concerted discrediting campaign, like Saddam's WMD, but it is also possible that the lab really did fuck up and is trying to hide it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Of course, if there is any validity to t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are so many reports confirming that many of the earliest infections could be traced to the wet market in Wuhan that it defies credulity that your unsubstantiated counterclaim was intended to actually promote any discussion, and instead was meant to only come across as childishly contradictory.
You have one chance to change my mind.
Got some evidence to support that position?
Re: (Score:2)
Ignorance is bliss I suppose, keep up the propaganda push, I am sure it will work out fine in the end. For the rest of us, the lab leak theory is enough of a possibility that the WHO is looking into it seriously again after originally saying there was no evidence for it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
But I guess Forbes is one of those right wing conspiracy news organizations?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, I didn't know the WHO was disconnected from reality. Thank you for informing me of this problem.
I am not the one claiming a damn thing. I am pointing out that the WHO is looking into it, and your assertion of a lack of evidence is strange, since there is evidence that people who worked in the lab were sick, before the outbreak at the market, but I guess that is explainable by you?
https://www.webmd.com/lung/new... [webmd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Where did I state a conclusion has been reached? As far as I have seen, you are the only one drawing conclusions, and trying to assert that I am disconnected from reality by pointing out that the lab leak theory hasn't been ruled out, and it still being looked into because there is new evidence that came to light making it enough of a possibility to be put back on the table as a possibility.
Re: (Score:2)
This suggests that the reason for the investigation is simply on account the lab leak's plausibility.
It is not. It is being performed to be thorough. Like what the heck was up with the contradictory data that seemed to be coming from the lab? It's indicative of a problem, not indicative of a lab leak
There are hard, scientific reasons to conclude that COVID19 did not escape from the lab in Wuhan. Not the least of which is that t
Re:Wait, I've seen this movie before (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily, in 2021 America, zombies would starve to (un)death.
Brains are nowhere to be found (grin)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, I am looking for my lost brain. :(
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The plot from the TV version of "The Last Ship" started with a virus melting out of an ice cap. But it wasn't zombies.
They have already developed a vaccine for them (Score:1)
Infections (Score:5, Insightful)
The article doesn't make it clear, so just to let everyone know - the odds of these things being infectious to humans are astronomically low. And, even if they were, after thawing their shelf life might be a couple of hours, or a few minutes if exposed to water or sunlight.
Re: (Score:2)
But I have concern that their shelf life might become extended FAR too long, if they happen upon a human host.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Infections (Score:2)
Try using small words
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that's true but you better believe there will be idiots looking to do "gain of function" research to make them dangerous.
A virus is not alive (Score:4, Informative)
And hence it cannot "survive" either. It can only be "intact".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Lipid membranes are fairly fragile things , it doesn't take much to destroy them. Perhaps a better word would be "viable".
Re: (Score:2)
Read that back to me Donna, especially the part claiming that viruses have lipid membranes....
Okay then, phospholipid membrane. But only if it's an enveloped virus.
Yes, I have a graduate degree in virology...
Re: (Score:2)
So what do you think the virus shell is made of genius, proteins?
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be a smartass. The envelope is a lipid shell and the virus couldn't function without it. Back under your bridge.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh do fuck off and learn to read, both what I wrote and dummies guides to virus structure. Here you go numbnuts:
https://www.brainkart.com/arti... [brainkart.com]
I doubt you'd recognise a biology book if someone whacked you over the head with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Only idiots would do that. There are a lot of idiots though and some of them could consider that to be an open question.
A virus is not alive under any sane definition of "alive".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And Pluto used to be a planet and only idiots questioned that fact. But here we are.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Christ, you political trolls are disgusting.
When Pluto was first discovered, it was indeed thought to be a planet. Earth sized, normal orbit.
However, since the the thing has a fucking 250 year orbital period, it was a little difficult to figure all that out from faint dots on glass plates.
As time went on, they started to narrow up the error bars in the estimates. The thing actually had to be around 1% the size of Earth, and composed mostly of ice. Further its orbit was so
Re: (Score:2)
And what I was saying is that maybe in the future, we'll discover more things and our definition of "alive" will change and make us all look stupid for ever doubting that viruses are alive.
Re: (Score:2)
We'll discover that their shreds of DNA actually have little subatomic particles that are also self-replicating and have metabolic functions?
Come on.
If we discover that viruses are alive, then we discover that plastic is alive.
Viruses have "life-like" qualities, when observed with enough disconnect from the physical processes. That makes some people think they're actually like-like, because they don't stop and think of how many other things have "life-like" qualities when observed with enoug
Re: (Score:2)
Stupid non-analogy is stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok then, how would you define life?
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on your definition for alive.
And hence it cannot "survive" either.
Things don't need to be alive to survive anyway.
Traditions can survive, and they aren't alive...
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about that, they reproduce and evolve over time, using (human) energy to propagate themselves, and eventually die. :0)
Re: A virus is not alive (Score:2)
Do traditions die though? Look at the US, traditional Christian ethos. Likewise an attack on Obama was Muslim. Even in many ways pro democracy can be attached to a Christian ethos though the split seems more clear under Luther versus Catholicism but maybe that's what happens when a church splits to?follow the teachings primarily of one apostle.
Shit missionaries in China are basically indistinguishable from pro democracy agent provocateurs...
Re: (Score:2)
Traditions certainly do die, once upon a time the Arabian Peninsula was polyandrous with one wife having as many as seven husbands. (The shortage of women was maintained by selective infanticide, decided by the mother.)
Re: A virus is not alive (Score:2)
Never heard this before. Very interesting. I guess my point is just like immortals, they can die but the methods of death are more limited, so death isn't guaranteed unless we are talking in terms of the heat death of the universe.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't just use human energy to propagate themselves, they use human everything.
They're as alive as an mRNA vaccine, or any other RNA fragment floating between your cellular nucleus and mitochondria.
Viruses are just a fragment of genetic code, that may or may not be covered in protective layers produced again, by our own cellular machinery. They have no metabolic function. They don't evolve, our imperfect cellular machinery evolves them.
If a virus is alive, then DNA is
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it's sad that in these times we frequently need the /s to tell if it's sarcasm or stupidity. I'd add prions to your list, too.
Re: (Score:2)
From a pragmatic point of view calling DNA "alive" is just stupid, because it destroys the meaning of that term. A stone would be "alive" by that definition. It is a time-honored tradition by idiots though to go to any and all lengths to try to claim they are right.
Re: (Score:2)
Traditions are not alive. The correct term is that a "tradition is being kept alive" and that does in no way mean the tradition itself is alive. It means there are people (which are alive) that keep the tradition.
Re: (Score:2)
An equally correct term is "the tradition survived".
Survive doesn't have to be related to being alive. That's the point you are missing.
Business survive, marriages survive. Along with religion, love, friendship, knowledge etc.
Additionally not just intangible things can survive. Practically any physical object can survive. Since survive can just mean continue to exist. Old books, relics and artifacts are good examples. No life is necessary. If you want to pretend life is necessary for all those things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, depends. It is vertainly not exact use of language. But a camera has a rather complicated mechanism that you trigger and than execustes a sequence of things. In addition, a camera is valuable and provides a way to create emmotionally valuable artefacts. Hence many people go all "animism" on it and see it as something almost alive.
A virus has nothing like that. If you are willing to make your argument for a stone, then that would be something else. Still not good language use though.
Let's hope there's not any coronaviruses in there (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying it came from British Columbia?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh sure... Blame Canada.
Nothing to worry about.They just infect ice worms. (Score:2)
It's the infected ice worms that will kill us all.
CVE? (Score:2)
Another click bait title... FTFY (Score:2)
Genetic Evidence of 15,000-Year-Old Viruses Discovered In Tibetan Glacier Ice.
It's still exceptionally cool to be able to study viruses from 15k years ago through preserved genetic material so they don't have to imply the viruses were discovered alive and intact. Although, this is maybe not as cool as the millions year old bacteria that were actually revived from dormancy.
Needs a "wereallgonnadie" tag (Score:2)
Definitely.