how does the Siberian worm getting defrosted have a negative impact on the world like the dozens of comment suggest?
In: 32
Meh. Bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics when they’re exposed to the antibiotic. It stands to reason that ancient frozen bacteria have never been exposed to the vast majority of antimicrobials in modern medicine (maybe they’ve been exposed to naturally occurring penicillium mold). We may not have immunity against these bugs, but they also have no mechanism to resist some good old amoxicillin, since they’ve never seen it before. They may also be susceptible to bacteriophages. Who knows.
Viruses are a different story, since antivirals are less common and very specifically active against certain viruses (influenza, hepatitis, and HIV for the most part). There could be a frozen virus that gets thawed and spreads like wildfire. But we had a COVID vaccine in like a year, and the vaccine development infrastructure is still there, so we’d fight that virus too.
Bottom line is there’s no way to know if microbiological threats exist within deep permafrost, but I’m skeptical that anything really catastrophic on a civilisation-ending scale is in there.
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