An ultrathin section of a Pithovirus particle in an infected Acanthamoeba castellanii cell observed by transmission electron microscopy with enhancement using the artistic filter "plastic packaging" provided by Adobe Photoshop CS5. Credit: … more French scientists said Monday they had revived a giant but harmless virus that had been locked in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30,000 years. Wakening the long-dormant virus serves as a warning that unknown pathogens entombed in frozen soil may be roused by global warming , they said. Dubbed Pithovirus sibericum, the virus was found in a 30-metre (98-foot) -deep sample of permanently frozen soil taken from coastal tundra in Chukotka, near the East Siberia Sea, where the average annual temperature is minus 13.4 degrees Celsius (7.8 degrees Fahrenheit). The team thawed the virus and watched it replicate in a culture in a petri dish, where it infected a simple single-cell organism called an am...
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