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posted by chromas on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-dead-yet dept.

Previously collected ice cores taken from a Tibetan glacier have revealed 28 new genera of viruses according to researchers from Ohio State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

A genus (plural genera) in biology encompasses multiple species. For example, Lions and Tigers (not bears) belong to the genus Panthera

The ice cores had not been protected from surface contamination when collected from the Guliya ice cap (northwestern Tibetan Plateau, China), so it was first necessary to establish "ultra-clean microbial and viral sampling procedures for glacier ice."

To ensure a pristine sample, the researchers, working in a freezer, first cut off some of the outer layer of each core sample. Each of the samples was then washed with ethanol to melt off approximately 0.2 inches of ice. Each was then washed again with sterile water to melt off another 0.2 inches of ice. The team also created test samples by repeating the same cleaning procedure on ice cores that had first been covered with known viruses and bacteria. The samples that remained were then deemed pristine and ready for study.

The study of the cores revealed a total of 33 groups of viruses with the majority previously unseen. The researchers note the importance of the work exposing the potential of melting glaciers to unleash deadly viruses.

Journal Reference
Zhi-Ping Zhong et al. Glacier ice archives fifteen-thousand-year-old viruses, bioRxiv (2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.01.03.894675


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:47AM (#948319)

    You already have enough viruses.

  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:37AM (6 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:37AM (#948332) Journal
    If they were dangerous, they would still be out there in the real world. I wouldn't worry.
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    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:00AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:00AM (#948387)

      ...wut

      Imagine you're a flowering plant, fighting other flowering plants and crushing it. You're the damn dominant annual or have a bulb that can last decades or whatever. Dangerous in the plant world right? Then grasses and pigs show up and put you out of commission. (cough, Hawaii) Why weren't you dominated by grasses and pigs before? Because you weren't exposed.

      Why aren't you and I dominated by cholera, or giardiasis? Because we clean our water but if we didn't it be a dice roll whether or not we died from a chance encounter. They're not not-dangerous because we don't give a shit, they're not-dangerous because we don't let ourselves get exposed.

      At first face it's overblown but it's literally a case of first contact for our species, unless of course we're Hawaii and it's just our pocket of humanity that survived the last ice ages leaving the great plagues behind, but for rare specimens encased in ice...

      Some posts you are willing to be an honest contributor and some posts like this one you just troll. Can you drop the troll please? It gives the bashing bigots ammo to use against you.

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:01PM (2 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:01PM (#948525) Journal
        Last I looked, humans were around 15,000 years ago. And 50,000 years ago. And the earliest ones have been tracked back to about 300,000 years ago. It's just not a case of "1st contact".
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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:45PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:45PM (#948835)

          What? Grasses and hogs were both around 15,000 years ago, and both around 500,000 years ago[1]. And I can assure you that for the last few centuries, until the last handful, there were none on the Hawaiian islands.[2]

          How does what you say make any sense in the context of geographically isolated populations, or the specific example?

          You're either being deliberately obtuse and a bad actor, or unintentionally foolish. It's painful; please stop airing your foolishness. Not everyone enjoys the schadenfreude of wrongheaded loud persons, and it doesn't productively add to the conversation.

          [1] Cretaceous and Early Pleistocene, for grass and pigs, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass [wikipedia.org] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar [wikipedia.org]
          [2] Again even Wikipedia works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_Species_in_Hawaii [wikipedia.org] but there are great studies if you want to look into it.

          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:28PM

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:28PM (#948921) Journal
            And those grasses are going to invade a human body and kill the person same as a virus? Your example is worse than an apple to orange comparison. Completely different life forms. Completely different scenarios. 15,000 year old viruses aren't a threat to humans - they didn't suddenly evolve 15,000 years ago and just as suddenly get frozen in time in isolation from humans. W were both around long before the last ice age.
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            SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
      • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)

        by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:43PM (#948548) Journal

        That is the tactic. You play normal half the time and then the community allowed to be crazy a little bit. And most people seldom notice that a different person is behind the keyboard every other time, so the language changes drastically from post to post.

        Shills(and all infiltration agents) establish credibilty, then test norms, rinse repeat. Slimy lateral power grabs, I call them.

        Shills cannot stop being 50 percent shill and then all is ok, that is not how any of this works.

        What shills do do however is go dormant, and then re-activate when they might be of use again.

        Like when someone starts dropping some real knowledge and you just happen to have an account made a few years back with someone's last name, so you can just follow them around and shame them with every tactic. Which she has.

        I am surprised it is still trying, it is so obvious at this point. What else happened on aug 10 2019?
        https://archive.is/MvM1G [archive.is]

        Who has been posting things that might anger those people?
        https://archive.is/ws6XQ [archive.is]

        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @06:59PM

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @06:59PM (#948960) Journal

          Like when someone starts dropping some real knowledge and you just happen to have an account made a few years back with someone's last name, so you can just follow them around and shame them with every tactic. Which she has.

          You are one dumb fuck! You go all cry-baby when I point out the bullshit in one of your posts where you claim that people who work at Walmart are lower intelligence, lower education, no ambition and need to be "guided" by people like you, then get even more angry when I destroy your arguments by pointing out that many people don't have a choice of jobs in today's economy, and they don't need assholes like you stepping on their necks when their bosses are already doing that.

          You claimed that calling out your bullshit is harassment.

          So how do you explain this latest bullshit post of yours, as quoted above? Hypocrite much? You even tried to hide it by not replying directly. Stupid coward.

          Anyone who reads your journal (and yes, I've copied the entries) - anyone with doubts about your sanity can start here [soylentnews.org].

          Now what I am curious about is why you had to flee the United States so quickly, borrowing $3k from your relatives to help you flee the country. Can't be legal debts - bankruptcy doesn't cost that much and won't leave you sleeping in a car in Germany getting all paranoid because someone else is sleeping in a van on the other side of the parking lot and OMG they have an antenna!

          Sure sounds like you owe someone who tends to use a baseball bat to collect. Or you fucked with the wrong people and had to leave the country "for health reasons." Or you're just batshit crazy. But these options are certainly not mutually exclusive ...

          So, given how quickly you ended up in Germany, my guess is you're on a visitor's visa. That would certainly explain why you want to be paid in cryptocurrency. And now you actually have a reason to be paranoid. I won't drop the hammer right away - I want you to sweat a bit first. Actually that's not true - I want you to sweat a LOT.

          You keep thinking everything is about you. Well, congrats, this time it is :-)

          My guess is you didn't think I'd notice this post. You thought wrong. Not because I was looking for it, but because it's just easier to scroll through all responses to a story than to check for responses from the message system. I've noticed other similar posts, and ignored them, but not this time, you pipsqueak.

          You've posted one lie too many and now it's payback time. And I for one intend to enjoy it. Judging from the comments of others in your journal, they will too.

          Allow me to quote Buffalo Springfield:

          Paranoia strikes deep
          Into your life it will creep
          It starts when you're always afraid
          Step out the line, the men come and take you away

          ... though this may be more appropriate [songfacts.com]

          And they're coming to take me away ha-haaa
          They're coming to take me away ho ho hee hee ha haaa
          To the funny farm
          Where life is beautiful all the time
          And I'll be happy to see those nice young men
          In their clean white coats
          And they're coming to take me away ha haaa

          ... one day you will get a knock at the door ... could be under the guise of a wellness check, or immigration, or a survey ... but we will both know what's really happening. Just our little secret :-)

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          SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:28PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:28PM (#948450)

    "Scientists Discover Nearly 200,000 Kinds of Ocean Viruses"
    https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-discover-nearly-200000-kinds-of-ocean-viruses-20190425/ [quantamagazine.org]
    180000 new groups is a little tiny bit more than 33, but ocean is not as FUD-worthy as a glacier, is it?

    BTW, same thing with bacteria; we still find dozens, hundreds, or thousands "new" species and genera every time we really look around.
    https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/11/18/Novel-marine-bacteria-could-yield-new-antibiotics/3281574101143/ [upi.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:03PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:03PM (#948484)

      You missed out the ones in the atmosphere.

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:04PM

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:04PM (#948527) Journal

        You missed out the ones in the atmosphere.

        And we hope to continue doing so - hence the face masks and travel bans in China. :-)

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        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:51PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:51PM (#948837)

      Hundreds or thousands of species. Genera, less commonly. And what you link to says

      Instead of species, Gregory classified the viruses into “populations” in which “there’s more gene flow within a group than between groups of viruses.”

      which means geographically separated populations (note they had a lot of new Arctic data) of the "same" species are different groups, so your example actually found far fewer than 180,000 new species.

      Yeah we find new things when we look new places or with new techniques. We also find new human diseases when we look with new techniques within human populations... that doesn't make those human diseases any less important.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:53PM (#948933)

        Here is the thing you obviously know nothing about, and it is the cornerstone of understanding what a "species" etc. even means when applied to bacteria and viruses.
        Enjoy the new knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer [wikipedia.org]

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