Permafrost can imprison dangerous microbes for centuries. Will the Arctic thaw release them?

Related articles Heat and disease will exact a heavy toll as climate warms BY Tim Appenzeller Changing bird migrations threaten to bring new infectious diseases to humans BY Jon Cohen Malaria cases could ebb in an even hotter world. But other diseases will get worse BY Kai Kupferschmidt This story, part of a special issue of Science , was supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Vapnek Family Foundation. In 1733, an Inuit boy and girl who had been sent to Denmark for the king’s coronation 2 years earlier sailed back home to Greenland. Both were in a “sickly state of health” during the trip, according to an account written a few decades later by a missionary , and the girl died on the way. Shortly after reaching his native land that September, the boy also died, of “a cutaneous disorder.” He had brought smallpox with him, and the disease raced around the island, killing Inuits and Europeans alike. Another missionary wrote of “houses tenanted only by the corpses of their former occupants, and dead bodies lying unburied on the snow.” The outbreak lasted until at least June of the next year, killing maybe half of Greenland’s already sparse po...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research