Scientists Discover Giant Virus On Greenland Ice Sheet Could Slow Down Melting


Scientists have found mysterious large-sized viruses on the ice sheet in Greenland. These viruses were first discovered in 1981. It is said that they usually infect algae found in the sea. But this is the first time that these viruses have been found in such an icy environment. But scientists are actually happy with their discovery. There is a big reason behind this.

Researchers at Denmark’s Aarhus University are not considering this as bad news, but they say that these viruses can act as a secret weapon somewhere, and Ice to rapidly Melting You can also stop it from happening. Study Microbiome has been published in the journal.

Laura Perini, a researcher at the university Accordingthey do not know much about the virus. But they believe that the growth of algae accelerates the rate of melting of ice, and these viruses can reduce this speed. That is, they can stop algae from flourishing, because these viruses have been reported to infect algae. But the researcher also said that it is difficult to say how effective they are in this work. But this can be found out by doing further research on them.

The team of researchers collected samples from the ice layer. This included samples of dark ice, ice core, red and green ice. After analyzing their DNA, the researchers found that they matched the giant virus. Usually viruses are much smaller than bacteria.

Science Daily According to, ordinary viruses are 20 to 200 nanometers (nm) in size. Whereas bacteria are 2 to 3 micrometers (mm) in size. In simple words, viruses are 1000 times smaller than bacteria. But this is not the case with giant viruses. Such viruses can grow up to 2.5 micrometers (mm) in size. That is, they are mostly found to be larger in size than bacteria.

So can these viruses be seen with naked eyes? The answer is – no! Researchers say that they use regular tools to find them, they can neither be seen nor identified with naked eyes. They even escape the eyes of low-powered microscopes.

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