China, ancient viruses trapped in the ice discovered

Not just coronavirus. Another and much more ancient threat could also come from China: about twenty mysterious viruses, trapped for thousands of years in a Tibetan glacier, which risk being freed from the melting of the ice caused by global warming. The alert was launched by an international research group led by the University of Ohio, which publishes analyzes of two ice cores on bioRxiv, the site that tracks scientific articles before publication in official journals.

Ice cores were taken in 2015, reaching a depth of 50 meters in the Guliya glacier, in the northwestern part of the Tibetan plateau. Thanks to an innovative sampling procedure that minimizes the risk of contamination, the researchers have identified the presence of 33 viral populations dating back to a period between 500 and 15,000 years ago: these viruses belong to 4 known genera and 28 hitherto unknown genres .

Melting ice, the researchers write, "could lead to the loss of these microbial and viral archives which can reveal much of the history of the climate on Earth." But not only that: "in the worst case, melting ice could release pathogens into the environment".