Melting permafrost risks releasing “viruses and bacteria absent from the biosphere of life on Earth for thousands of years”. Evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie believes that “viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past”. Research undertaken in 2015 on a melting Tibetan glacier identified “28 previously undiscovered virus groups”.



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