Ancient Arctic viruses can infect civilization

Source: (https://bit.ly/3BSx8T4)
While one of the main concerns regarding the ongoing melt of Arctic
permafrost is the release of greenhouse gases such as methane
previously trapped in the frozen soil, there are other elements, such
as ancient viruses and bacteria that could pose a potential danger
to humanity as they are discharged from their icy tombs.
But do these archaic pathogens present an actual danger to humans
and the environment? An international team of researchers is
exploring that very question: with over a million years worth of
organic matter trapped in the rapidly (sometimes explosively!)
melting soil it's reasonable to assume that something hazardous might
accompany the rest of the otherwise benign microbes present.
Such a scenario isn't just the object of speculation, with instances
of anthrax spores being released from melting permafrost infecting
not only herds of reindeer in Siberia, but also the members of
a village on Russia's Yamal Peninsula in 2016, resulting in the death
of one of their children.
The researchers participating in this new study examined 13
newly-catalogued viruses that were extracted from permafrost samples
taken from Siberia; three of these viruses were found in the
petrified remains of a 27,000-year-old mammoth, and another was
recovered from the entrails of a frozen Siberian wolf.
The research team thawed the viruses, and then sequenced their
genomes before infecting cultures of commonly-found amoeba with
the prehistoric pathogens; despite some of the viruses being at least
48,000 years old, several of the samples successfully infected the
amoeba, replicating to produce fresh virus particles.
Although these pathogens might sound like a pandemic-triggering
ticking time bomb, none of the viruses were capable of infecting
an animal host.
"The ones we revived are no danger at all; they only infect amoeba,"
explains study co-author Jean-Michel Claverie, a computational
microbiologist at France's Aix-Marseille University. "But their
presence and infectivity suggests that ancient viruses infecting
animals/humans could still be infectious."
One of the outcomes of this study is the disproving of the notion
that permafrost contains few viable microbes, a scenario that would
mean that the mass-melt being observed in the Arctic isn't likely
to present a danger to modern humans in that regard; on the contrary,
the study identified trace evidence of other microbes that are
related to species known to infect humans, such as poxviruses and
herpesviruses.
These more familiar microbes likely wouldn't present as significant
a danger to modern populations, as vaccines designed for today's
pathogens would offer at least some protection against their ancient
counterparts. However, the real danger might lie in dormant viruses
that we aren't familiar with and have no prior immunity, such as the
COVID-19 pandemic-causing SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Unfortunately, the current political situation in Russia has halted
the collection of new Siberian permafrost samples, although the
research team says that they are at least able to continue their
research using the samples they already have on hand.