Temperature rises, melting glaciers can release dangerous viruses from the Ice Age

When studying two ice cores from the glacier in the Tibetan Plateau, a team of US and Chinese scientists discovered 33 pathogens, 28 of which are unknown, having lived during the Ice Age, from 15,000 years ago.

Since 2015, scientists have drilled 165ft (50 meters) into the glacier to learn about the mysteries beneath them.

Temperature rises, melting glaciers can release dangerous viruses from the Ice Age Picture 1

Scientists say the glaciers in the world are melting by global warming. This would probably keep the ancient bacteria trapped for tens to hundreds of thousands of years outside the modern world. In the best case, this only leaves us with a valuable repository of bacteria and viruses that scientists can study about the Earth's climatic conditions. The worst thing is that these ancient bacteria were released into a modern world without immunity.

Currently, scientists still do not know the harms of these viruses, some may be harmless, some are potentially fatal to humans.

In 2016, the ancient eternal thaw released a dormant bacterium for a long time that followed the outbreak of anthrax in Serbia, killing more than 2,000 reindeer and hospitalizing 96 people.