this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
146 points (97.4% liked)

World News

39127 readers
2936 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that non-adaptation a double-edged sword? Sure, the viruses aren't adapted to humans. But likewise humans aren't adapted to these forms of viruses. So while the chances of infection may be lower, the immune system won't have any adequate answer to it.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

No, that's not really how it works. They are still "conventional" viruses and the immune system is as good or as bad against them as against others. They still need to infect to be successful themselves and that chance is definitely lower.

Chance of infection is a bit of a binary choice, they cannot just infect a cell in your body "a little bit". They are either adapted or not. Now if they manage to jump into an animal that is close to what they originally infected, then mutate enough within those animals to get close to infecting a human, then we might have a problem on our hands. But as I said, we already have that with e.g. the bird flu.

[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

That's interesting. Last year I visited an exhibition in Windischeschenbach / Germany where they drilled a hole that is more than 9000 meters deep to analyze the layers of the soil. There they said that they also penetrated several water basins while drilling that were completely isolated for billions of years. Still they didn't find a single biologist willing to analyze these water samples. The reason that was given to me was that the liquid may contain completely unknown and highly dangerous bacteria, viruses etc.

Permafrost to me is quite similar to these underground water basins in terms of isolation over a long period of time. So that's what I based my original claim on.

But I'm neither an expert in geology nor biology, so I can't judge the potential risk.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 months ago

I mean, it's not wrong. There is a chance and obviously a scientist might not want responsibility over securing samples properly. It's just the chance of something bad happening is really low and certainly much lower than any doomsday person is making up.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Give it here I'll drink it.

E: Taste identical to Glacial Cherry Gatorade.

[–] amanda@aggregatet.org 0 points 4 months ago

Ugh, BORING! They apparently passed up on the opportunity to do real life The Andromeda Strain!

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It seems like you're talking about viruses that are new to us, unadapted as you've said.

I would suggest that the concern is more for these viruses that don't need to adapt, such as polio. Viruses that humans have been getting all along, but now the melting permafrost is a new, surprise vector. As well, there are viruses that are perhaps unknown to us, but which were not unknown to our ancestors. Such a viruses may be laying dormant in the permafrost, and ready to wipe us out. No adaptation required.