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[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Isn't that non-adaptation a double-edged sword? Sure, the viruses aren't adapted to humans. But likewise humans aren't adapted to these forms of viruses. So while the chances of infection may be lower, the immune system won't have any adequate answer to it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

No, that's not really how it works. They are still "conventional" viruses and the immune system is as good or as bad against them as against others. They still need to infect to be successful themselves and that chance is definitely lower.

Chance of infection is a bit of a binary choice, they cannot just infect a cell in your body "a little bit". They are either adapted or not. Now if they manage to jump into an animal that is close to what they originally infected, then mutate enough within those animals to get close to infecting a human, then we might have a problem on our hands. But as I said, we already have that with e.g. the bird flu.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That's interesting. Last year I visited an exhibition in Windischeschenbach / Germany where they drilled a hole that is more than 9000 meters deep to analyze the layers of the soil. There they said that they also penetrated several water basins while drilling that were completely isolated for billions of years. Still they didn't find a single biologist willing to analyze these water samples. The reason that was given to me was that the liquid may contain completely unknown and highly dangerous bacteria, viruses etc.

Permafrost to me is quite similar to these underground water basins in terms of isolation over a long period of time. So that's what I based my original claim on.

But I'm neither an expert in geology nor biology, so I can't judge the potential risk.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I mean, it's not wrong. There is a chance and obviously a scientist might not want responsibility over securing samples properly. It's just the chance of something bad happening is really low and certainly much lower than any doomsday person is making up.

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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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