Thousands of Previously Undescribed Viruses Found By Huge Ocean Survey (newscientist.com) 35
The first global survey of marine RNA viruses has discovered thousands of new viruses, some of which play a central role in locking away carbon at the bottom of the sea. From a report: Between 2009 and 2012, researchers aboard a ship called Tara collected seawater samples from all the world's oceans. Guillermo Dominguez-Huerta at the Ohio State University and his colleagues had previously looked at hundreds of thousands of DNA viruses in these samples and found they were concentrated in five major ecological zones, with some of the greatest diversity in the Arctic Ocean. But this only told half of the story. The ocean is also filled with viruses that have genomes made of a different genetic material called RNA, which cells use to direct protein synthesis. Analysing DNA viruses was relatively easy using existing methods, but the researchers had to come up with improved techniques to distinguish viral RNA from the surfeit of RNA produced by the other organisms swimming in each sample.
Now, Dominguez-Huerta and his colleagues have published the biggest-ever survey of RNA viruses in the ocean using the samples from Tara. The researchers identified more than 5000 types of RNA viruses in the sea, almost all of which were new to science. "It has expanded our view of how much diversity there is," says Curtis Suttle at the University of British Columbia, who wasn't involved in the study. The team focused particularly on the role viruses play in carbon sequestration. Every day, massive numbers of dead plankton sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking the carbon in their bodies with them, which is then entombed for potentially millions of years. This process, known as the biological carbon pump, puts away as much as 12 gigatonnes of carbon each year. That is about a third of the total annual human-caused CO2 emissions.
Now, Dominguez-Huerta and his colleagues have published the biggest-ever survey of RNA viruses in the ocean using the samples from Tara. The researchers identified more than 5000 types of RNA viruses in the sea, almost all of which were new to science. "It has expanded our view of how much diversity there is," says Curtis Suttle at the University of British Columbia, who wasn't involved in the study. The team focused particularly on the role viruses play in carbon sequestration. Every day, massive numbers of dead plankton sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking the carbon in their bodies with them, which is then entombed for potentially millions of years. This process, known as the biological carbon pump, puts away as much as 12 gigatonnes of carbon each year. That is about a third of the total annual human-caused CO2 emissions.
Weponization Reaserch Worker Perks Up (Score:2)
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Considering humans are the only animal on the planet able to do extraordinary amounts of devastation in a short time which will last for centuries, and ocntinue to go about doing so even though we know the damage it's causing, it's quite plausible we could be called the enemy.
Re:Weponization Reaserch Worker Perks Up (Score:4, Informative)
I know it was a couple billion years ago, but bacteria caused a total change in the composition of Earth's atmosphere resulting in the extinction of nearly all life on Earth. Humans are nowhere near that destructive capability yet.
I'll grant you viruses have never done anything like that, though. They need to keep some of us around so they can reproduce in us.
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Nuclear weapons. Global warming frying the planet and the extra CO2 is acidifying the oceans.
Humans are very near that destructive capability.
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Dunno.
One of the leading theories back in the day was that bacteria were a major thing holding viruses in check (and allowing humans to propagate).
The human immune system is poorly suited to viruses.
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"bacteria were a major thing holding viruses in check"
That's just not the case. Viruses prey on bacteria, look up phages.
"The human immune system is poorly suited to viruses."
That's a strange statement when viruses have been with us since there were any animals.
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You significantly underestimate the destructive potential of rabbits, deer, and locusts.
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Whatever those animals do is recovered in a short time. Human production of nuclear and chemical wastes, mine runoff, and other manufacturing processes literally kill everything.
Not far from where I live, they have to dump a few tons of limestone into a small creek (only a few feet across) every year because upstream is the remnants of a small mine from a hundred years ago. There is no life in the stream up from where the limestone is put in. Just below there are trout.
I defy you to find a rabbit, deer or
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These animals can cause widespread food chain collapse over a much larger area... and the food chain doesn't regenerate for a few million years once you've reached a certain point of desolation. Like the mine example, they've been mostly kept in check in modern times but if you look through news archives there's recorded notable incidents where they've either lost or nearly lost control a few times.
Re: Weponization Reaserch Worker Perks Up (Score:1)
But... (Score:1)
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It must have been conducted by (Score:3)
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And they even have a Internet suite product based on Netscape, Thunderbird, Gecko, etc. https://www.seamonkey-project.... [seamonkey-project.org] :P
Quick! (Score:4, Insightful)
To Wuhan!
Re:Quick! (Score:4, Funny)
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Not the best summary... (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you read carefully it's easy to miss a vital connection - namely that the viruses infect calcium-rich plankton, which then explode (!) as a result. The calcium reacts with CO2 and the reaction products fall to the ocean floor in a natural carbon sequestration process.
TFA makes this clearer, and is worth reading. For more context, check out https://www.weizmann-usa.org/n... [weizmann-usa.org] .
Re: Not the best summary... (Score:2)
Exploding plankton sounds like it would make a great video game.
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Sounds like Sponge Bob got tired of taking shit and went full bio-weapon on his arch nemesis.
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Alright, that's the plot sorted.
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Re:Not the best summary... (Score:5, Informative)
Months after you've measured your net pay interval, and your producibility data, your post-well analysis may get onto studying the environment of deposition. If the prospect is worth the expenditure. If not ... that's what the "core store" is for - keeping the government and partners happy.
More generally, you'll see the gas dissolved in the pore fluids coming to surface as your primary indicator of a bed relatively rich in hydrocarbons ; processing the rock cuttings to extract and then identify any forams (or other microfossils) typically takes several hours, while gas analysis equipment can give you indications within minutes of the relevant drilling mud coming to surface. I actually do tests on the responsiveness of contractor's gas systems, and a response time over 2 minutes I'd consider as a safety issue requiring improvement. (So, re-route the pipework, or use a smaller bore pipe if your sample transport pump can suck hard enough.) (If you get actual oil droplets to surface, you're probably close to losing control of the well. Which is bad news.)
So specific as to not even be wrong. I've worked on hydrocarbon reservoirs from nearly 600 million years old but probably only loaded with hydrocarbons in the last hundred-or-so million years, to reservoirs barely 25 million years old and charged with hydrocarbons almost so close to their time of deposition that we can't really differentiate the two events. You can't safely generalise about these things ; you've got to work out the sequence and timing for each play in a region.
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Did they just discover Pandoras' Box? (Score:2)
What are the potential consequences of this, if all these different virii, both DNA and RNA based, got loose on land?
BleepingComputer? (Score:2)
Has anyone notified them yet?
My AV databases are updated to the latest. I hope I'm not at risk.
No no no, don't mess with them now (Score:1)
we're still dealing with Covid and Monkey Pox.
Not looking so awesome now (Score:1)
The ocean is also filled with viruses that have genomes made of a different genetic material called RNA, which cells use to direct protein synthesis.
This has lowered my already record low desire to ever go swimming in the ocean again to the smallest of levels.
Even in full SCUBA gear you are immersed in that soup for quite some time.
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Well put them back (Score:2)
A bit more on Tara (Score:1)
Disclaimer: I work at one of the lab involved in sequencing and analysing DNA samples from Tara
How long can we sequester? (Score:2)
What is being missed here?
How long can we as a planet continue to sequester?
If it can be assumed that this process of plankton falling to the ocean bottom has been happening for millions of years already, shouldn't the oceans be much shallower, wouldn't there be a build up? And if there isn't, why isn't there?
If sequestering is good for carbon, why is it bad for say for spent nuclear fuel?
There are lots of questions that don't seem to be addressed whenever the latest sequestering approach is trotted out.
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'Cuz carbon isn't toxic. When sequestration fails, carbon isn't likely to kill whoever finds it - it'll probably just smell really bad. Granted, there's no half-life, so it'll always smell funny; but it still isn't toxic for timespans measured in millennia.