The Siberia-based Vektor lab in Russia has announced it is launching research into prehistoric viruses by analyzing the remains of animals recovered from melted permafrost. Seems like good idea…. Ancient viruses unleashed upon a modern world… Cool, cool….

They began by studying tissues extracted from a prehistoric horse believed to be at least 4,500 years old.

via The Guardian:

Vektor said the remains were discovered in 2009 in Yakutia, a vast Siberian region where remains of paleolithic animals including mammoths are regularly discovered.

Researchers said they would also probe the remains of mammoths, elk, dogs, partridges, rodents, hares and other prehistoric animals.

Maxim Cheprasov, head of the Mammoth Museum laboratory at North-Eastern Federal University, said in a press release that the recovered animals had already been the subject of bacterial studies.

He said: “We are conducting studies on paleoviruses for the first time.”

Vector Labs, it should be noted, was once a center for the development of biological weapons in Soviet times, and is one of only two facilities in the world to store the smallpox virus.

So again… I ask you: What could possibly go wrong?

(Photos: Pixabay)