Have you pretty much given up all hope for a zombie apocalypse? Especially with the past few seasons of The Walking Dead sucking mightily, who wouldn’t?
Ahh… but hope still clings by a thread. As it turns out, researchers in western China have discovered deep in the glacial ice, a total of 33 viruses dating back at least 14,400 years.
But here’s the rather disconcerting part; of the 33 discovered, “most of them are unlike anything ever seen before,” as reported by Jordan Mendoza of USA Today.
Specifically, Mendoza noted, “Up to 28 were novel, meaning they had never before been identified.”
Further reported;
A group of scientists discovered ancient viruses frozen in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China, and most of them are unlike anything ever seen before.
The findings, published Wednesday in the journal Microbiome, came from ice cores taken in 2015 that scientists said began to freeze at least 14,400 years ago.
“These glaciers were formed gradually, and along with dust and gases, many, many viruses were also deposited in that ice,” Zhi-Ping Zhong, lead author and researcher at the Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, said in a statement. “The glaciers in western China are not well-studied, and our goal is to use this information to reflect past environments. And viruses are a part of those environments.”
When researchers analyzed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses. Of the 33, genetic codes for four of them showed they are part of virus families that typically infect bacteria. Up to 28 were novel, meaning they had never before been identified.
Knowing full well the quality of security the Communist Chinese use when it comes to viruses, I can’t help but wonder what may happen if any of these pathogens might mutate into something a damn sight deadlier than COVID-19.
Something that won’t kill hundreds of thousands, but hundreds of millions.
I’ll bet that Fauci’s cure-all will be at least three masks all worn at once.