15000 year old Viruses Discovered by Scientists In the Ice Of The Tibetan Plateau Of China!

 August 5, 2021

Scientists discovered nearly 33 viruses, frozen in the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau of China. Scientists claim that these viruses somehow survived as they had remained frozen for thousands of years.  The findings, published in  Microbiome, could help scientists understand how viruses have evolved over centuries. The researchers also created a new, ultra-clean method of analyzing microbes and viruses in ice without contaminating it. 

The U.S. National Science Foundation-funded researchers analyzed ice cores from the Guliya ice cap that were collected at high altitudes - the summit of Guliya, where this ice originated, is 22,000 feet above sea level. The ice cores contain layers of ice that accumulate year after year, trapping whatever was in the atmosphere around them at the time each layer froze. Those layers create a timeline that scientists have used to understand climate change, microbes, viruses, and gases throughout history.

With the help of many techniques, researchers were able to tell the age of the ice and found out that the viruses were 15000 years old. 

"These are viruses that would have thrived in extreme environments," said Matthew Sullivan

 "These viruses have signatures of genes that help them infect cells in cold environments -- surreal genetic signatures for how a virus is able to survive in extreme conditions." -  NSF Public Affairs

The scientists found genetic codes for 33 viruses. Some of those viruses have already been identified by the scientific community, but at least 28 are new. About half survived at the time they were frozen not in spite of the ice, but because of it.