Question: Hello! What do you think about the new 'Mega Virus' discovered alive in French laboratories after it thawed through the ice in Serbia?

Lilian Hunt answered on 12 Mar 2014:

Ooooh I’m impressed with your current knowledge! The pithovirus that was discovered firstly seems to be only harmful to amoebas (single celled micro-organisms), not human or mouse cells, which is a great relief! It is huge though, about 30% bigger than the previous one found by the same lab. My thoughts are that although this virus is seemingly harmless, there could be other harmful microbes in the permafrost that they are thawing. This could be a problem as in the future people want to thaw more of it in Siberia to get to the oil underneath (this is why the researchers are slowly thawing and testing samples). However it is pretty cool to think something that is 30,000 years old can be found and still be alive in these frozen conditions! We just need to tread carefully when defrosting these layers, just like exploring any new area of the Earth or space – you don’t know what you could find…!