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There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet. NPR ran a story[0] where Russian animals such
by kregasaurusrex 9y ago
There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet. NPR ran a story[0] where Russian animals such as reindeer infected with Anthrax had thawed out, and caused outbreaks where people had to get preventative treatments against it. As a future threat model, what if there's new viruses or bacterium contained under previously frozen earth for which modern medicine isn't prepared for?
[0]https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/03/488400947/anthrax-outbreak-in-russia-thought-to-be-result-of-thawing-permafrost https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/03/4884009...
- bsaul 9y agoOr, what if every of those bacteries whose evolution stopped thousands of years ago are simply completely inapt to compete with the ones we've got today, because those had much more time to evolve ?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tzahola 9y agoThat’s not how evolution works. That’s like saying that a dog could easily kill a velociraptor because dogs are 65 million years “more evolved”.
- FeteCommuniste 9y agoI would bet on a medium-sized to big, healthy dog against a velociraptor. Raptors were around the size of a turkey. Might not be an easy fight, though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- SEJeff 9y agoVelociraptors have two rows of teeth in addition to a 2.5" retractable middle claw theorized to be used for slashing or stabbing attacks. Many dogs would have a size advantage, but all would have fewer teeth and generally soft padded paws with no serious claws. Even with the smaller size, the Velociraptors seemingly have the advantage. The "Fighting Dinosaurs" fossils give some credence to the claw being used to pierce the neck of a prey animal: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/fighting-dinos/the-fighting-dinosaurs/ https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/fighting-dinos/the-fighting... Something like maybe a Rodesian Ridgeback (lion hunting dogs) might stand a good chance however.
- mc32 9y agoDo wild turkeys have spurs like fighting cocks, and how do they fare against dogs, i would wonder.
- crgt 9y agoWe have wild turkeys near us. My chocolate lab went a couple rounds with a mother turkey this spring. First couple of encounters went to the mama turkey as she was defending her babies and my dog was just terrified of her. She would spread her wings (6-8 feet wide or so?) and then hover above him. He would freak out and back away, terrified. Eventually the dog got brave, chased her off and ate a couple of turkey babies. But based on that interaction, I definitely would NOT bet on a lab taking down a velociraptor. The raptor would have gone for the kill when the dog was still scared..
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoYes, turkeys (wild or domestic) have spurs. Typically an inch or so in length, up to a bit more than two inches for the biggest, oldest birds. They also have interesting beards, which can be 10 inches long! They'll bluster and charge to defend young against a curious city dog, but will flee up to roost if challenged by a pack of hunting dogs. If you find a cornered turkey, don't try to catch it or let your dog attack: you'll probably win from sheer mass and from having predatory weapons, but you will be badly bloodied.
- 9y ago
- Varcht 9y agoDinosaurs are now birds? Do Velociraptors climb trees?
- labster 9y agoYou got it backwards, birds are now dinosaurs. The world just got that much cooler. If you're not convinced, look through YouTube for videos of my favorite dinosaur, the raven.
- clw8 9y agoCare to elucidate on the choice of ravens? I would go with cassowaries and emus as examples of "oh yeah they totally are dinosaurs"...
- labster 9y agoMainly just that ravens are awesome, and velociraptors are awesome, so Q.E.D. Not really a scientific argument. I do wonder how many Cretaceous critters were intelligent to the degree of ravens or dogs or primates, if any. We know they weren't as good at terraforming as we are, or there'd be some evidence in the strata. But the Cretaceous was longer than the current period, so I wouldn't be shocked if something we could call intelligent evolved.
- Varcht 9y agoHah, poor dumb kid. Velociraptors evolved into birds, birds are safe from grounded velociraptors... Read gp again, see it fits? Heard of Socrates?
- grondilu 9y agoI don't know about velociraptors, but there probably is a Creodont species that was pushed to extinction by ancestors of dogs. I mean it is believed that Creodonts disappeared due to the concurrence of the Carnivora order. The idea that more recent species are "more evolved" than ancient ones is not completely absurd.
- adamio 9y agoTo be pedantic dogs are pretty selectively bred by humans. Raptor vs Wolf might be more apt
- sooheon 9y agoBacteria are pretty selectively bred by humans too :P
- bsaul 9y agoi think that would be like saying a stray dog would be better at surviving in today's world than a stray velociraptor.
- flatline 9y agoSomeone has revived 45myo yeasts: https://www.wired.com/2009/07/ff-primordial-yeast/ https://www.wired.com/2009/07/ff-primordial-yeast/ Mutation takes place very quickly once the revived microorganism makes contact with the outside world. I would think the outcome is highly unpredictable.
- oh_sigh 9y agoThat's not really how it works. You could equally argue that those ancient bacteria have attack methods that our modern bacteria has forgotten about, making them even more dangerous
- Ygg2 9y agoActually, scientific research points in opposite direction. Modern bacteria are better adapted than old bacteria.
- matte_black 9y agoSuch events are necessary to keep human population under a manageable number. Throughout human history there have been outbreaks that claimed many lives and stunted population growth for some time. We will likely see such an event in our time.
- ceejayoz 9y ago> Such events are necessary to keep human population under a manageable number. Is there any evidence for this assertion?
- matte_black 9y agoWhich part, that the events are necessary or that we have to keep human population to a level that the planet can currently support?
- vkou 9y agoThe former. At our current consumption levels/technology, we are obviously above our planet's current carrying capacity. This is not controversial. We are living on borrowed time - our civilization currently relies on the consumption of non-renewable resources, and the non-sustainable consumption of renewable resources. Even if this is sustainable for 10, 20, or 100 years, it is not sustainable for longer time horizons.
- dane-pgp 9y agoIt's worth pointing out that for developed economies like the US, UK, and Japan, the amount of per capita energy usage is the lowest it has been in decades: https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/0784d9d63336606d4ca02540d22b765f05709d5f/a5204/exports/energy-use-per-capita_v1_850x600.svg https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/0784d9d63336606d4ca025... This may be at least in part due to the shifting of energy-intensive industries to countries like China, but it does show that countries can continue to grow their GDP (per capita) while dropping their energy usage per capita, which bodes well for the future.
- cgb223 9y agoHow effective were the preventative measures on that? Do we have a cure / vaccine?
- chesimov 9y agoThere was a recent Icelandic (I think) TV show with a premise along these lines
- stickfigure 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortitude_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortitude_(TV_series) Filmed in Iceland, set in Norway. Slow paced but quite excellent. (S2 was not as good as S1, however)
- hexane360 9y agoAlso an X-Files episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_Falls_(The_X-Files) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_Falls_(The_X-Files)
- leggomylibro 9y ago>There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet. Hey, that was the plot of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness! http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx Spoilers: "...But we were not on a station platform. We were on the track ahead as the nightmare plastic column of foetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus; gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, re-thickening cloud of the pallid abyss-vapour. It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch, mocking cry—“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” And at last we remembered that the daemoniac shoggoths—given life, thought, and plastic organ patterns solely by the Old Ones, and having no language save that which the dot-groups expressed—had likewise no voice save the imitated accents of their bygone masters."
- cgh 9y ago> crushing the frantic penguins There are no penguins in the Arctic (Antarctica only) so nothing to fear.
- leggomylibro 9y agoOh, then we're probably safe - he was only worried about the Antarctic: "I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic — with its vast fossil-hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice-cap — and I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain. Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there would be nothing left." Whatever, drill away!
- 9y ago
- cperciva 9y agoAnthrax is a bad example here. Sure, some frozen reindeer had anthrax... but so does the soil in most of the world.
- sndean 9y ago> what if there's new viruses or bacterium contained under previously frozen earth for which modern medicine isn't prepared for? A group at Harvard found that the traits that now enable enterococcal survival and transmission in hospitals were an advantage in the Paleozoic [0] and suggest that the multidrug resistant (i.e., untreatable) strains seen in hospitals were trained to be that way millions of years ago. There was also a split between commensal/friendly and unfriendly enterococci around the time of urbanization. So it's certainly possible that we'd encounter something we don't have an answer for. It has already been seen, in a way. [0] http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30478-6 http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30478-6
- aaron695 9y ago> There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet. This is stupid. A medical waste dump from "decades" ago leads to issues..... How do we jump to this science fiction and quotes below from NPR of unbelievable???? "Officials don't know exactly how the outbreak started, but the current hypothesis is almost unbelievable: A heat wave has thawed the frozen soil there and with it, a reindeer carcass infected with anthrax decades ago." Waste dumps from the past cause issues in the future.. How on earth is this unbelievable? How is it even related to global warming? They dug a hole when it was cold, it got warmer in summer one year and defrosted? It also only killed one person. And we were prepared for it. This makes for a crappy SciFi novel by any standards.
- red75prime 9y agoSuch bacteria will probably be susceptible to penicillin.