Huge, amoeba-infecting virus unleashed from Siberian permafrost

C'mon, isn't that the greatest headline ever?


Scientists have revived a new type of virus that had been buried in the frigid ground for thirty millenniums.

Frozen for more than 30,000 years, this new type of giant virus called “Pithovirus” has survived under extremely harsh conditions of northeastern Siberia. They are called "giant" because unlike "regular" viruses they can be seen using an optical microscope.

Found about 30 meters below the surface in the permafrost (the permanently frozen layer of soil found in the Arctic regions) region, the virus – 1.5 microns long and 0.5 microns wide – infects only amoebas, according to the international team of researchers who published their findings in a paper titled "Thirty-thousand-year-old distant relative of giant icosahedral DNA viruses with a pandoravirus morphology" in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


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http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0304/Huge-amoeba-infecting-virus-unleashed-from-Siberian-permafrost