What if we bring back an ancient virus. Throughout history, humans have existed side-by-side with bacteria and viruses. From the bubonic plague to smallpox, we have evolved to resist them, and in response they have developed new ways of infecting us. We have had antibiotics for almost a century, ever since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. In response, bacteria have responded by evolving antibiotic resistance. The battle is endless, because we spend so much time with pathogens, we sometimes develop a kind of natural stalemate. In this video we are going to look into what would happen if we were suddenly exposed to deadly bacteria and viruses that have been absent for thousands of years, or that we have never met before.

In a study, NASA scientists successfully revived bacteria that had been encased in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years. The microbes, called Carnobacterium pleistocenium, had been frozen since the Pleistocene period, when woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth. Once the ice melted, they began swimming around, seemingly unaffected. Two years later, scientists managed to revive an 8 million year old bacterium that had been lying dormant in ice, beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica. In the same study, bacteria were also revived from ice that was over 100,000 years old.

In 2014, an ancient giant virus was discovered by french scientists. The Pithovirus sibericum virus was found frozen in a deep layer of the Siberian permafrost, a permanently frozen layer of soil, but after it thawed it became infectious once again. This giant is still decidedly microscopic. But in the diminutive world of viruses it is larger than normal specimens, measuring 1.5 microns in length and 0.5 microns in diameter. Giant viruses are loosely defined as the ones that you can see under a regular microscope. The ancient pathogen was discovered buried 100 feet down in the frozen ground and had been lying dormant for at least 30,000 years. According to the scientists the contagion posed no danger to humans or animals, but as the ground becomes exposed, other viruses could be unleashed. Other bacteria that can form spores, and so could survive in permafrost, include tetanus, and botulism, a rare illness that can cause paralysis and even prove fatal.

In the summer of 2016 anthrax killed a 12 year old boy in a remote part of Siberia. At least 20 other people, also from the Yamal Peninsula, were diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease after approximately 100 suspected cases were hospitalised. Additionally, more than 2,300 reindeer in the area died from the infection. The likely cause was thawing permafrost. According to Russian officials, thawed permafrost released previously immobile spores of Bacillus anthracis into nearby water and soil and then into the food supply. The outbreak was the region's first in 75 years. In the early 20th Century alone, more than a million reindeer died from anthrax.


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