00:00Our planet is heating up, and that's causing Earth's massive reserves of ice to melt.
00:08We know this will cause sea levels to rise and global ocean currents to be thrown into chaos.
00:13But now experts are worried about another microscopic threat hiding in that very ice.
00:18Scientists say there is growing evidence that dangerous pathogens might be dormant at the moment,
00:22frozen in ice and time, but could thaw as the planet warms.
00:26And they believe this is likely already happening.
00:28There was an anthrax outbreak amongst residents and reindeer in Northwest Siberia in 2016.
00:33That outbreak killed 2,000 reindeer and one human.
00:36And the source of it, experts now say, was an animal carcass that was frozen for ages before thawing in a warmer world.
00:42And researchers have been able to recreate this type of thawing in a lab as well,
00:46with scientists having previously revived a 50,000-year-old virus they found frozen in a lake.
00:51What's more, DNA and RNA sequencing of viruses currently frozen in the ground
00:56and water of a lake in the high Arctic resulted in some troubling findings.
01:00Not only do these virus family trees suggest their ability to infect humans,
01:04but they also found that a higher glacial melt rate would result in higher infection rates as well.
01:09With some wondering if new and terrible diseases will rear their heads,
01:12or if currently eradicated ones like smallpox might become a common concern once again.
01:18No one is alone.
01:26Yeah.
01:27No one is.
Comments