A group of international scientists have discovered thousands of 41,000-year-old zombie viruses in melting permafrost in the Himalayas.
About 1705 viral genomes were found preserved in an ice core on Guliya Glacier on the north-western Tibetan Plateau, according to the Nature Geoscience report published this week.
Many of them are novel, meaning they have never been uncovered before.
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The discovery was made following an expedition in which a 60-person strong team of Chinese and American scientists retrieved several ice cores from the glacier, which sits about 6096 metres above sea level.
The ice cores were held them in freezers to allow them to study paleoclimates, which can offer insights into the Earth’s climate.
It took almost a decade for the team to catalogue the ancient viruses after first sampling the ice cores in 2015.
They were dealt with methodology and funding challenges, which prevented them from returning.
The team believes their find has expanded their understanding over viruses thousands of years old and the changing climate over several millennia.
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