What if Melting Ice releases all sorts of "old" bacteria?

A virus wouldn't survive being trapped in arctic ice over millions of years. Virusses (virii?) require a biological medium in order to survive. Being frozen in ice won't cut it, especially over periods of time (like minutes...let alone thousands or millions of years). That's why AIDS effectively needs to be transferred while within the safe confines of blood and semen. Spitting on someone, or shaking hands, doesn't allow it to survive long enough to spread. Even virusses that are "airborne" are alive in tiny, aerosolized water droplets (snot that someone sneezed into the air), and can last a little while until someone walks by and breathes them in.

This is pretty elementary biology that I learned in high school. I guess this is what comes of all the people who weren't paying attention. "Teh polare kaps will reelese anshunt diseeses!!!!!eleventy!"

 

And bacteria on the other hand are another critter entirely, and pretty damn resilliant, but I sincerely doubt even they could dig in and hold out for 200,000 years. Assuming they could, Eugene's right. They're fit for a world that doesn't exist anymore. In all liklihood, if such a miracle bacteria did reawaken somehow as the polar ice melted, it would get the living shit kicked out of it by the modern world...and it wouldn't be around long anyway.

 

No they haven't. Bacteria and virusses are totally different critters. Bacteria are hardy, and can survive a lot of nasty conditions by effectively going dormant when times are tough. Virusses are very simple and very fragile. We don't just believe that bacteria and virusses can't survive certain things...we know they can't. Even if a bacteria can survive a little hardship, being frozen solid for thousands of years is a little different than a dry spell that it's sleeping through.

Next you'll be telling me that there was this guy who died around a place called Crystal Lake, but he didn't really die, because he came back to life and started killing other people for revenge! Therefore, people don't really die!

 

Skip, are you a complete idiot, or just a partial idiot?

I mean seriously. Do you ever read a fucking book, or do you just pull this kind of bullshit out of your ass?

Science Fiction is still fiction, dummy.

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obviously he does read, scientific and tecnical journals, the real deal, not JUST fiction, which is more then can be said for most people in a culture that romantacizes ignorance, and the arbitraryness of familiar assumptions, which is the same thing.

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it will, btw, be very interesting to see what develops. odds are REAL good, the corporate media won't cover it until some official government sanctioned study comes out after we're all half dead.

at my age, well life isn't for ever. but nature could have been. we, as a species, won't outlive the web of life, though we may or may not pull it down with us. that or we could smarten up. in what might or might not still be in time.

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we're not, anything we do now, going to reverse the momentum we've already built up in this global warming thing. but we could stop adding to it, which could increase that rapidity and probability of it restabalizing in some, once again self renewing configuration.

and the culprit is really simple: the use of combustion to generate energy and propel transportation, multiplied by our shere numbers. propelled by what amounts to greed. not just with a big "G" but with the little g in all or most of us, that we may not even notice we have. a lot of little g's creating a market for the big G that is doing for us.

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if it was to melt then the oceans would also warm up and they alot of methane gas frozen at the bottom it would be released in a large amount and that can't be good

 

Nope. Both Skip, and now you, are both idiots for suggesting that a virus or bacteria can survive in the vacuum of space.

This kind of idiotic, bullshit, fearmongering to further an agenda is exactly the type of thing we would expect from the Neoconservative wing of the GOP in order to keep people afraid of terrorists. I guess ignorant fearmongering knows no boundaries of the political spectrum. Any lie to push an agenda, eh?

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I've heard reports of scientists having discovered in core samples taken from deep in the polar ice that there is almost a 90 percent chance that 80 percent of those nations with a population reflecting 70 percent of the world's most risk-sensitive areas will be rendered mindless flesh-eating zombies by a scourge more deadly than Ebola and HIV put together by the time I finish typing this sentence.

 

Many bacteria are able to enter a hibernation\suspended animation state in which they simply turn off, and will come back to life when conditions are more favorable.

If by germs you mean viruses, they never were alive in the first place. They are simply little packages of genetic code that has the ability to take over an already living cell.

And about the massive chemical natural disaster thing, anything large enough to make a global differance would be detected when ice cores were drilled.

 

Honestly everything is possible.
Oh my god, imagine if what you say can hapen????

 

haha :agree:

now lets not forget to be politically correct

 

I have difficulty with the idea that diseases from old bacteria/viruses would be more virulent or difficult to deal with than existing diseases. They are bacteria, with no Penaciline (sp?) resistance.

Old chemicals? A spill of 200,000 year old dioxins would be a huge problem. Fortunately very few dioxins were produced 200,000 years ago.

 

good point skip

 

I suspect if such a thing is possible that it is once again the way that nature balances things. Would it be so very bad for the EARTH if most of the humans were to die off? Nope. Perhaps that is the very thing that would "save the earth"... We generally forget that we are GUESTS here, and we can be evicted very easily. Anything is possible.

 

We're not guests, really. There is no host, to be thanked before we leave.
Humanity is a part of earth's biosphere, with enough monkey cleverness that we can really make things unpleasant if we don't think about what we are doing.

 

Matter of opinion, I guess. I think the host IS earth (mother nature) and if we don't treat it (her) with respect while we are here we can be replaced, easily. Nature ALWAYS has the upper hand. And she seeks balance. Always. I also think that most humans are so far removed from being a part of nature at this point in time, the earth would breathe a great sigh of relief if we were to simply cease to exist. And I'm sure that could be arranged.
For all the things we THINK we know, there are far more things we absolutely DO NOT KNOW (yet).

 

I think you all watched John Carpenter's 'The Thing' a little to many times.......

 

if the bacteria relises there is a 40 percent that the bacteria released may start
evolving into prehistoric creatures or some thing but we wont die don't worrie