Feb. 6, 2026

What Melting Permafrost Really Means For Human, Animal, And Planetary Health

What Melting Permafrost Really Means For Human, Animal, And Planetary Health

Send us a text Ice doesn’t just melt; it remembers. As permafrost thaws, we unpack what really ‘wakes up’ in the soil—and what that means for human health, animals, crops, and culture. We bring a One Health lens to a noisy topic, cutting through “zombie virus” headlines to explain why most human viruses don’t survive freeze–thaw cycles, and how a 2016 Siberian outbreak became a case study in climate, ecology, and policy colliding. We explore the icy regions of the map—Russia, Canada, Greenla...

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Season 4

Send us a text

Ice doesn’t just melt; it remembers. As permafrost thaws, we unpack what really ‘wakes up’ in the soil—and what that means for human health, animals, crops, and culture. We bring a One Health lens to a noisy topic, cutting through “zombie virus” headlines to explain why most human viruses don’t survive freeze–thaw cycles, and how a 2016 Siberian outbreak became a case study in climate, ecology, and policy colliding.

We explore the icy regions of the map—Russia, Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Antarctica—then dive into the mechanics: frozen soils, ancient organic matter, and greenhouse gases are released when microbes “switch on.” You’ll hear how megaviruses that infect amoebae survived for tens of thousands of years, why smallpox on ice is noninfectious, and how plant pathogens threaten food systems as tourism and trade move microbes on boots and gear. We also explore prion durability, revived nematodes, and fungi’s overlooked role in carbon cycling that accelerates warming.

Beyond the lab, we sit with the human story. Indigenous communities situated in permafrost regions face failing infrastructure, disrupted wildlife patterns, and cultural loss that statistics can’t capture. Add in geopolitics: like the Ukrainian war that has severed scientific data flows from vast Siberian regions, creating dangerous blind spots in permafrost surveillance. The takeaway isn’t panic—it’s preparation. Surveil, learn, support cross-border monitoring, and center cultural resilience alongside climate adaptation.


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Thanks for listening to the Infectious Science Podcast. Be sure to visit infectiousscience.org to join the conversation, access the show notes, and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to receive our free materials.

We hope you enjoyed this new episode of Infectious Science, and if you did, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Please share this episode with others who may be interested in this topic!

Also, please don’t hesitate to ask questions or tell us which topics you want us to cover in future episodes. To get in touch, drop us a line in the comment section or send us a message on social media.
Twitter @Infectious_Sci
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00:00 - Welcome And Framing One Health

00:37 - What Permafrost Is And Where It Lies

03:16 - Climate Change, Infrastructure, And Inequity

06:36 - Virus Viability Myths And Realities

12:48 - Ancient Amoeba Viruses And Smallpox Checks

17:29 - Anthrax Biology And Spore Survival

21:05 - The 2016 Siberia Outbreak And Drivers

26:24 - Surveillance Gaps And Geopolitics

30:08 - Plant Pathogens, Biosecurity, And Tourism

34:18 - Prions, Parasites, And Fungal Feedback

39:40 - Cultural Loss, Indigenous Impacts, And Adaptation

45:05 - Takeaways, Risks, And How We Prepare

54:27 - Closing Notes And Calls To Action

WEBVTT

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This is a podcast about OneHealth.

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The idea that the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment that we all share are intrinsically linked.

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Coming to you from a team of scientists, physicians, and veterinarians, this is Infectious Science.

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Where enthusiasm for science is contagious.

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All right, hello everyone.

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Welcome back to this episode of Infectious Science.

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We are super excited to be here with you all today.

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We are going to get into a big thawing problem.

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As we've previously discussed, global warming is continuing, the permafrost on our planet is thawing.

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And then because there are bodies of animals and humans who died of disease that are in the permafrost in some places, and some of that hasn't melted in a really long time, there's definitely been some discussion in the scientific community about the risk of potentially thawing out pathogens from the permafrost.

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This is sounds very science fiction-y, but it's actually really hotly debated in scientific circles.

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So we're going to talk about if we're in danger or not.

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And so the answer might surprise you.

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But I'm curious, we have Alex, Christina, Dennis, and myself today.

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Has anyone ever actually been up to like where we have permafrost regions in the world?

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Because I I live where it's cold, like up in New York, but it's not permafrost.

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Yeah.

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I actually have.

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I had a stint in my career in Winnipeg in Canada.

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And so this is very close to the Arctic Circle.

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And yeah, the winters were eight months long.

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At least that's how it felt to me.

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And so yes, this is definitely a permafrost area.

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So that's brutal though.

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An eight-month winter is brutal.

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But I've always wanted to be up somewhere where I feel like once you're in the permafrost regions, you would see the northern lights.

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So I feel like that's a draw for me.

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Yeah.

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I've personally never been in a permafrost region, but my uncle is currently in Antarctica, which is the coolest thing ever.

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He's sending pictures that's so neat.

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Oh my god.

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On a cruise or like a research thing?

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He went on a cruise, but it's one of those adventure cruises, so you actually get to set foot on Antarctica, but he keeps sending pictures every day.

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It's definitely a bucket list item.

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And I'm not a cold girl.

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Like, what's the that's wild?

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I love the cold personally.

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I made the mistake.

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My uncle was up visiting and I took him out on a walk with me.

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And he like got so chilled we had to turn back, and I was like, this is great.

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I was just like a Labrador ready to play in the snow.

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I was just so content.

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It's like a it's like a really cold wind chill because I'm really close to the Great Lakes.

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I've lived in Southern California, northern Nevada, Northern Virginia, and Northern Virginia was already enough of winter for me.

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I only shuddered to think of what you go through being by the Great Lakes control or you, uh Dr.

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Benter in Winnipeg.

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Yeah.

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You would not survive.

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I know, but I know that.

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And so I plan around it.

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Yeah.

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There you go.

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Fair enough.

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Yeah.

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And I didn't actually realize that in order to be classified as permafrost, it has to be like frozen to like the ground of spring completely frozen for at least two years, which is really wild to think about.

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And it's actually less of the planet than I thought it was with 15% of the land in the northern hemisphere, but it can be snow free in the summer, which I guess I knew that, right?

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Like it'll melt and you have a bit at the top that's constantly freezing, thawing.

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But I did not know that about permafrost regions before jumping into this episode.

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It's interesting you mentioned Winnipeg, though, Dr.

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Bente, because as we have global warming really continuing, NASA actually put out something that, especially in northern areas where we have built up infrastructure, things like that, it's really at risk because that thawing permafrost can like destroy houses and roads and other infrastructures, the ground shifts because permafrost is as hard as concrete.

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But if you're thawing it out, it's suddenly no longer that way and it can sink and dip.

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And I know even up here where it's up in New York, it's not permafrost, but we have massive amounts of adjusting to do the all the infrastructure every time everything thaws because you get frost hubes in the roads and it affects your house and things like that.

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So I just thought that was something to think about.

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That's not really like infectious focused, but it still can affect health, right?

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Like you can have a significant threat to like your ability to get food or like medical care, things like that, if the infrastructure, like all the roads and things are being impacted by it.

00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:41.279
So, Camille, first of all, we are on what season four now, and you guys still call me Dr.

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Benter.

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How many times have we talked about this?

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Okay, Dennis, it's habit.

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I think you're gonna be on my committee.

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It's just a force of habit.

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And you're a doctor too, so uh yes.

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It's habit, it's habit.

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Yes.

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But what I wanted to ask you, Camille, uh Dr.

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Ledoux, what I wanted to ask you, and I know you will go into details later on, I know that with statistics and so on, but like from a continent or from a country perspective, what countries have the most permafrost?

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I think that might be also interesting for the audience to hear.

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Like what countries really have the largest percentage of permafrost?

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Yeah, so really you're gonna be looking at Russia and Canada and Greenland.

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That's where we see a lot of the permafrost.

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But in particular, though, not a lot of that is necessarily settled, right?

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There's not necessarily a huge human population up there.

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It can be really brutal climate-wise.

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And so a lot of times I do think you'll see like a lot more of indigenous communities in these areas that were where people live traditionally.

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And these are people that are definitely experiencing more inequities due to the human-mediated change in our climate.

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And so these kind of marginalized indigenous communities that live in permafrost regions are being further disenfranchised and disproportionately affected by these ecological disturbances like permafrost thyme.

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But that's really where we see it, I would say, is really those three main countries.

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Yeah, I looked this up while we were talking about this, and you mentioned this Siberia, which is almost 70% of Russia's land mass, is all permafrost.

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Yeah.

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Then at 85% of Alaska permafrost, just to throw out some numbers, Canada, Greenland, all in the news, and there's also obviously permafrost in the southern hemisphere.

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Yeah.

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And these, yeah, uh, the Southern Alps and beneath the Antarctica.

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So that was actually news to me, to be honest with you.

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Just wanted to throw that out there.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And I think this is a good time to talk about what makes something permafrost, right?

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So it's it's the soil and rock, and a lot of times like organic matter that's frozen.

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Again, it's got to be like below freezing for more than two years to be considered permafrost.

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But what's really interesting about it and why we're talking about this topic is that when permafrost is frozen, things like plant material in the soil can't decompose.

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Animal or human bodies don't necessarily rot away.

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But as the permafrost thaws, those microbes that are already in that soil can begin decomposing the material.

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That can release greenhouse gases that's going to be like carbon dioxide, methane, and that warms the planet, which can lead to more thawing in permafrost.

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So it becomes this positive feedback loop that really results in a lot more damage.

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But of course, while that's a concern and that's definitely going to impact health, right?

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And we've done a whole episode on how global warming impacts health.

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There's also things like ancient bacteria and viruses and parasites in that ice and soil.

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And there's definitely a kind of non-zero potential that these newly unfrozen microbes have the potential to make humans or animals really sick if we're exposed to them.

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And some of them are thousands of years old, right?

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And it's so far beyond what we can even consider on like our normal like human timescale to think about these things that might be persisting in the environment that we just haven't come into contact with.

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And that's always something we've talked a lot about this on the show of a really big danger is not necessarily that something's in the environment, but that there's a neat naive population that's gonna be exposed to it.

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And so these are not necessarily things that we've come in contact to.

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So we're gonna talk about what's thawing out, starting with viruses.

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But I do just want to put a disclaimer on here because I feel like I read a lot of science fiction, right?

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I'm a big reader, and most people who listen to infectious science know that.

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And I love like pathogen horror.

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And a lot of times they're like, you're gonna thaw out this zombie virus, and then it's gonna take over.

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It's always set up in these islands off the coast of somewhere and it's super cold, and then they thaw something out or they're digging somewhere they shouldn't.

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And then like, and it's fun to read, but that's definitely not like the reality of what we should actually be concerned about with this.

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And that's because a lot of times I think people get this idea that we have had really incredibly deadly viral outbreaks in permafrost regions.

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You've had things like the 1918 influenza, you've had smallpox, and then people have been basically buried in the permafrost, right?

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But it's really unlikely when anything like that thaws out that it's still like a viable virus.

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And by that I mean like that it's still infectious.

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But I do want to make a disclaimer here, Camille, and just adding on to your disclaimer, I think that's this perception, what's the demon in the freezer, right?

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We have something that's frozen, and now all of a sudden we reach into this freezer and we grab it out and it's immediately infectious.

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Yeah.

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I think that's the misperception.

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It's not a freezer that is at minus 80 degrees and just stabilizes something.

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It's a pathogen that you put in a minus 80 freezer, but now you unplugged the freezer, and the freezer is slowly thawing.

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And we know that a lot of viruses, especially the envelope viruses, are very sensitive to the thawing process.

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So were they stable for years and years at minus temperatures?

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And to emphasize that this is permafrost, it's the ideal environment.

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It's there's no oxygen, it's cold, it's perfect for a pathogen to be stabilized, but then it thaws and then gets closer.

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And especially the refreezing and then re-thawing also influences the infectivity of pathogens.

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And you brought up 1918, the flu.

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Keep in mind, somebody, yes, people died in in these areas and were frozen in the permafrost.

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When people looked for it, they were never able to get the live virus out of those samples.

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Yes.

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Were they able to sequence part of the genome and then artificially construct the virus?

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Yes, but it's not that some archaeologist was digging and then infected themselves.

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Yeah.

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So I just want to make sure that the audience is aware that this is not some free breach and then all of a sudden we have a new pandemic.

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Yes, yes.

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No, and that was actually my next point is that for anyone interested, Christina and I did an episode on mummies a little while ago, and we talked about how a grave containing the bodies of those who died from the 1918 flu that were in permafrost was excavated.

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And while they were able to recover these genetic fragments, the influenza virus itself wasn't infectious.

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And they actually had to dig twice to even find genetic fragments.

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And they only found it because it was basically insulated by the layer of fat in one individual's lungs.

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And I think you make a really good point too.

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I don't know, Alex or Dennis, if you want to comment more on this, but like when we are working with something like a virus in lab, even to have it in a minus 80, you're not really just like sticking it in a minus 80.

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Usually, if you need to use it at a later date for like more experiments, there's usually like some kind of reagent that's stabilizing it or making sure that it's going to be in a way protected from the effects of eventually falling it out.

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And so I think that's also something people need to think about that it's actually pretty hard to keep something viable.

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Yes, absolutely.

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Yeah, you're absolutely right.

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That needs to be some sort of a matrix that's the protects the virus in addition to the low temperatures.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And in particular, too, something to think about.

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We talked about climate change on a previous episode.

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And a lot of our listeners probably know 40% of the Arctic and subarctic permafrost by the end of the century might be thawed, which is wild to think about.

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That's gonna massively change entire communities and ways of living.

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But if viral pathogens maintained infectivity while frozen in permafrost, which as we've just said is pretty difficult, they're only really a concern if they can actually jump to humans or animals.

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And there's not really a reason for alarm because that's actually pretty difficult, right?

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So you'd have to see a reintroduction of something that is probably already not persisting in a body that's in thawing graves or mass burial sites.

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There is always the concern that you could see something jumping into wildlife or domestic animals.

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Alex is going to talk about that a little bit later.

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And then it could be maybe transmitted to humans from them.

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And then there's the concern too that, okay, we have viruses that we know are viable, right?

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There are some viruses that are viable.

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I'll talk about them in a minute, but their hosts are microbial, right?

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So it's not a human host, it's not an animal host, it's something like bacteria or archaea, things that then to make the jump to infecting a human is pretty significant.

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And it's not something we really see.

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Oftentimes, a virus is going to infect not even just animals or something, it's going to affect a species, right?

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Like we've talked before a lot about papillomaviruses.

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And there are human papillomaviruses and there are canine papillomaviruses and so on and so forth.

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But you don't necessarily see like a crossing over of these things.

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Usually it has a pretty specific host.

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And so that's something that I just wanted to throw out there.

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But there are some viruses that are in permafrost, which I think is really cool, and we should talk about them because they are viable, which is really wild to consider based on everything we just talked about.

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Again, not all viruses infect humans.

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So the ones that we found that are viable from permafrost in 2014 and 2015, there were samples of Siberian soil.

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It had been frozen for 30,000 years, which is an exceptionally long time.

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And researchers were able to find two large DNA viruses, but they could only infect amoeba.

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So they don't pose any threats to humans.

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And then later on, they actually found 13 more permafrost megaviruses that infect amoeba, some of them dating back up to 48,500 years.

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So just to put that in context, Neanderthals were still walking around alongside Homo sapiens 48,500 years ago.

00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:33.679
So these are really old viruses, but they were still able to infect amoeba, which is really fascinating because a lot of times, for all the reasons we just mentioned, freeze thaw cycles and having the perfect conditions and viruses needing a host that was alive in order to continue to persist, we don't necessarily see stuff like this.

00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:36.799
So it was really significant that we saw that.

00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:43.120
I feel like is the specter, right?

00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:47.200
I think I'm the first generation that didn't have to get vaccinated for smallpox.

00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:49.039
Dennis, did you have to get vaccinated?

00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:51.679
No, my brother did, but I didn't.

00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:54.639
I know I look old, but I'm not that old.

00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:56.639
Oh, all right, rude.

00:14:56.720 --> 00:14:58.000
I was not saying that.

00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:00.480
My mom has a smallpox vaccination, I'm pretty sure.

00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:01.600
Mine does too, yeah.

00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:02.720
Yeah, I don't know.

00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:07.360
But Christina, Alex, myself, I know we don't have it because we don't vaccinate for it anymore.

00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:08.320
Because we eradicated it.

00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:09.279
Woo, that's great.

00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:14.639
And but there is always this kind of fear, I think people are like, oh, it still could be out there.

00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:20.320
The reason we were able to eradicate smallpox is because um humans were basically its reservoir, right?

00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:22.879
So it wasn't necessarily just existing elsewhere.

00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:36.240
But just to rule out anything for permafrost, we don't have to worry about smallpox because actually in the 1990s, a wooden vault near a village in northern Siberia that actually contained mummified bodies of smallpox victims was found.

00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:47.519
But scientists from the Vector Institute, which is similar to the CDC, and so colleagues from there really collected samples from these mummified bodies from the chamber, including from smallpox postules, right?

00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:50.480
Which, if you were going to find something infectious, you'd expect to find it there.

00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:54.000
They were actually unable to isolate live virus from the samples.

00:15:54.080 --> 00:16:00.879
And they suggested that this was because it was destroyed by freeze thaw cycles, because the burial site was pretty near the surface of the permafrost.

00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:09.039
And I think that's really important to mention because this is likely where most recent human remains would be, as permafrost is hard as concrete, as I already mentioned.

00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:12.960
So burying people any deeper would have been super, super difficult.

00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:15.279
And there are other examples where they found that.

00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:20.879
As Camille was saying, bacteria and viruses certainly loom beneath the permafrost.

00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:25.679
And bacteria are a slightly different story than viruses, as many of these can be fairly hardy.

00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:42.399
And regardless as to whether they infect humans or not, increasingly it appears that bacteria thawing from the permafrost can either directly contribute to global warning, may pose a risk to plants we rely on for food, but in the case of anthrax, also may also pose a direct risk to livestock and to us ourselves.

00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:47.360
And so bacillus anthoracies is the bacterial agent responsible for causing anthrax.

00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:53.440
And it's important to understand with bacillus anthoracicis that there are two forms of bacteria during its life cycle, a vegetative and a spore state.

00:16:53.519 --> 00:17:01.679
And spore formation occurs when the bacterium encounters unfavorable environmental conditions, say a high oxygen content environment, for instance.

00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:09.599
And the spore is essentially the dormant form for the organism, and it contains the most critical parts of the vegetative, the replicative bacteria.

00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:26.799
So its genome and some small acid-soluble proteins that protect the genome and other components, and it's encased by a variety of different protective structures, like a thick peptinoglycan cell wall known as the cortex, and then a protein-rich spore coat and a thin outer membrane.

00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:31.440
And these spores can remain in a dormant state for an extended period of time.

00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:35.440
Some of these have been isolated outside of permafrost after several decades.

00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:44.720
And when environmentally favorable conditions resume that these spores can encounter, then they may subsequently germinate and revert to a more vegetative state.

00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:57.519
And these spores tend to be shed by dead or dying animals that were infected with bacillus anthracis, because bacillus anthrasis is this pathogen that predominantly affects these large herbivores.

00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:01.920
Reindeer are some that are really critical in the case of the Siberian outbreak.

00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:03.359
Reindeer?

00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:04.559
Oh no.

00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:08.480
Christmas is in jeopardy.

00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:21.279
I'm afraid, although I do say that the thine of uh the Arctic polar ice caps will probably do a little more damage to Santa's workshop than just the reindeer dynoff.

00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:24.720
Yes.

00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:27.759
I could not help myself with that.

00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.319
But I know sheep too, right, Alex?

00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:36.400
But sheep too, right?

00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:40.559
So you're saying reindeer, but also sheep are like very large reservoirs.

00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:41.599
Yeah, exactly.

00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:49.039
Yeah, sheep, pigs, the a wide variety of different uh herbivores end up being affected, and so it's definitely a significant problem.

00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:53.200
But humans, of course, can also get infected, which is a significant issue.

00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:57.359
It's largely as a result of contact with infected herbivores, for what it's worth.

00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:11.359
And it's not like there's a case of human-to-human transmission, certainly, but it's still something that, especially like in industrial settings, it's important to be aware of the fact that some of the animals involved may end up having rabies, and there's a re or not rabies, sorry, anthrax.

00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:15.839
Anthrax is also it's a bacteria f found in the soil, right?

00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:17.839
It's bacterium that lives in the soil.

00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:32.960
And every once in a while we see these explosive outbreaks where like an animal picked up the bacterium in the soil, gets infected, and it's just maybe dying and then amplifying the anthrax to other animals close by.

00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:41.839
So, my question for you is why what's the permafrost component that makes it more dangerous?

00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:51.599
Or since we already see that day-to-day in many countries around the world with anthrax from the soil, what's the difference now finding it in permafrost?

00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:52.319
Absolutely.

00:19:52.480 --> 00:20:06.240
The soil conditions in which some of these anthrax spores can be found play a really critical role in terms of their ability to proliferate and in anthrax outbreaks ultimately coming to fruition to some extent.

00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:15.759
So anthrax spores tend to favor more neutral to alkaline pH soils along with environments that have high degrees of soil moisture.

00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:31.200
And it's also more common for livestock to potentially come into contact with anthrax spores after a prolonged period of dryness that in and of itself was preceded by a period of significant soil moisture.

00:20:31.359 --> 00:20:40.400
That moisture event essentially could allow for a greater degree of proliferation of the spores themselves, and that and it may have some sort of a germinative effect on the spores in a limited capacity.

00:20:40.559 --> 00:20:44.000
That's still something that a number of bacteriologists are looking into.

00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:44.559
Gotcha.

00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:45.599
Okay, that makes sense.

00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:53.279
But what we see in the case of the permafrost thaw in Siberia was that there was this anthrax outbreak in Siberia in July of 2016.

00:20:53.359 --> 00:21:04.720
And in the years leading up to it, 2011 to 2016, there were these abnormally hot winters and periods where the permafrost was simply not refreezing the way that it should have been.

00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:23.519
And so as a result, and as Camille was saying about the importance of the soil remaining frozen for years on end, really, that enabled some of these spores that would have been within the frozen soil to emerge from perhaps their somewhat more dormant state and start to proliferate in a limited capacity.

00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:37.519
And then in the summer of 2016, so this was in this like northwestern part of Siberia specifically, this particular region had abnormally high temperatures as well, 29 to 34 degrees Celsius.

00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:43.279
So pretty hot, you know, uh upwards of the the 90s, I believe, in the on the Fahrenheit scale on the lower end, right?

00:21:43.359 --> 00:21:49.359
Which is not exactly the most ideal, and certainly atypically hot conditions for that sort of environment.

00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:59.839
And that affects the animals that then are going and feeding in the sense that in these sorts of drought like conditions, there may be more limited grass for these animals to feed on.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.480
And so that means that they be more in contact with the soil as a result of that.

00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:20.079
Or they may be, in their grazing behavior, more enforced in nature, in the sense that they have to seek out these limited areas that have had perhaps better access to water, and that congregation around certain limited areas may also enable this sort of a proliferation.

00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:34.240
Another key aspect of it though is not just about the contact with the spores directly through some of these soil dynamics themselves, but also the fact that these high temperatures increase the amount of biting insects that were present in the region.

00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:44.960
And these insects play a very critical role, especially in terms of the explosion of some of these anthrax outbreaks and can transmit to humans and to other herbivores alike.

00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:51.279
And so what was also noticed in this region was that there was a significant increase in the population of some biting flies.

00:22:51.359 --> 00:23:09.039
And so as a result, that probably all combined in kind of a perfect storm for an outbreak in the local reindeer population to emerge, and for then that to then rapidly spread among reindeer who may not have necessarily been immediately geographically proximate to that specific case.

00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:20.960
And then through that, and through the important role of reindeer as a livestock animal in the region and handling of reindeer products, or then exposure to the human population on that side.

00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:28.799
And ultimately there were reindeer that were infected, and over 300 more ultimately were culled by Russian authorities in response.

00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:36.960
And there were about 36 human cases, one of which resulted in a death of a 12-year-old boy, which was of course a tragedy indeed.

00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:40.400
Yeah, this I was not aware of this outbreak or this thawing.

00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:42.160
So I thought it was very interesting.

00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:48.160
And what I saw when I looked into this is that during this period you mentioned these six warm years, right?

00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:51.039
Like where there was enough time for things to thaw.

00:23:51.359 --> 00:24:05.039
So after these relatively warm years, there were actually cold years after this, but the cold years had a lot of snow, and the snow covering stopped the permafrost from freezing over again.

00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:07.599
Yeah.

00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:09.839
Insulation, the snow is insulation.

00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:16.240
And so although it was colder, it just didn't freeze through again and turned back into permafrost.

00:24:16.319 --> 00:24:23.680
And I think this just goes to show that weather or local climate or climate in general is just way more complex than we think.

00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:29.839
People always say, this year was just one warm year, but it's not just one year, it's the trends that we have to look at.

00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:36.799
Yeah, and that's really important to you for when you think about the contribution of permafrost bacteria to global warming.

00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:40.720
It's not just, oh, you have one super hot day and then they start to become active, right?

00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:46.880
There were some researchers that took basically bacteria that they isolated from a permafrost research tunnel in Alaska.

00:24:47.039 --> 00:25:00.400
And when they basically simulated the thawing conditions in a lab, it took one to six months for those bacteria to essentially wake up and begin to sort of proliferate to the point where they would start breaking down organic matter and producing the greenhouse gases.

00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:01.119
You're correct.

00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:04.799
That it's these long-term trends that kind of does it in.

00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:14.160
And I think it's also important to think about we've talked about this before, but like anything that happens in an environment that happens fast is usually bad for the ecosystem there, right?

00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:17.920
If it happens on a quick scale, it's going to be devastating for something.

00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:22.240
So the adaptation that's not just not enough time for the environment to adapt.

00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:24.000
Like with what's happening with AI.

00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:30.319
The AI development is so fast that we don't have time to adapt, and probably AI will kill us off.

00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:36.240
Well humanity itself.

00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:52.480
Meanwhile, our AI chat agent here on Riverside is uh telling us not to pass.

00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:56.000
Absolutely.

00:25:57.839 --> 00:25:59.279
We can't put it back in the box.

00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:00.960
I think that's the thing with permafrost.

00:26:01.119 --> 00:26:02.000
That's the thing with AI.

00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:03.359
You can't put it back in the box.

00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:05.599
Once it's started, it starts rolling.

00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:08.400
Like it just becomes this sort of feedback loop.

00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:08.799
Yeah.

00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:09.200
Yeah.

00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:18.160
And that's why it's important to certainly be cognizant of some of these risks that are associated with some of these as well and mitigate those, have strategies in place to mitigate those.

00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:25.519
Because, for instance, with this anthrax outbreak, there are anthrax vaccines that are available, including some that are available for animals.

00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:43.039
But Russian authorities in 2007 stopped vaccination efforts because this particular region in Siberia, its last outbreak of anthrax was in 1941, and there were significant vaccination efforts since then, and the region was declared anthrax-free in the 60s.

00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:53.279
And so as a result of just halting these vaccination efforts, because it didn't appear like there was a problem, it enabled also then for anthrax to subsequently emerge.

00:26:53.359 --> 00:27:06.400
And of course, it's urgently critical then to go and be cognizant of some of these things and perhaps exercise a modicum of excess caution, which I think is a word to the wise when it comes to both AI and the effects of climate change both.

00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:22.480
Yeah, but I also think too, we're talking a lot about Russia with this particular outbreak, but because of the current war that's going on in Ukraine, all of the collaborations that existed in place to basically do this kind of surveillance that you're talking about for permafrost are gone.

00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:23.599
They've been blocked.

00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:27.839
And so the only places we're now doing this are Greenland and Alaska and Canada.

00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.039
And so we're also missing out on part of the picture.

00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:33.039
And that's still a very human thing, right?

00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:39.680
That we can't just put back in the box that we've lost out on all these years now of data because of a war.

00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:46.799
And so this is another way that it's all so interconnected and entwined and something that is going to come back to bite us.

00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:48.000
Yeah.

00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:48.480
Okay.

00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.440
So last year I read this book called The Light Eaters, right?

00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:53.359
And ever since then, I've been interested in plants.

00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.880
Like I've actually seen them as a more interesting thing than previously.

00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:05.359
I was always very much like, oh, like it's a plant, but it doesn't have the kind of things that I was interested in, which was always much more on like the mammalian side of biology.

00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:32.160
But interestingly enough, when we're thinking about bacteria that are thawing out of permafrost, in 2025, so just last year, a research team that was looking at Alaskan permafrost found that a dormant pathogenic bacteria that infects plants could be thawed from the permafrost and was viable, which I thought was really interesting because if you think about this, it was a pseudomonas species that they isolated and it causes potato soft rot symptoms, which you might be like, oh, okay, whatever, it's fine.

00:28:32.319 --> 00:28:43.039
But if you think about this, permafrost might be acting as a reservoir of pathogens that affect things that aren't humans, but that can absolutely affect us as we are existing in these ecosystems, right?

00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:50.079
And so if you have something like a plant pathogen that is viable, that is thawing out of this soil, that could affect crop production.

00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:53.279
Also, if you think about just like what's the biosecurity of that, right?

00:28:53.359 --> 00:28:58.319
As we're going in and out of these regions, that's something that people don't often think about and consider.

00:28:58.480 --> 00:28:59.920
What might we be taking elsewhere?

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:02.640
And could plants be naive to these pathogens, right?

00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:03.920
If they've just been frozen.

00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:05.039
So something to think about.

00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:20.079
I mean, it reminded me of this and what you were saying about these pathogens coming in and out and thinking about the biosecurity aspects as we continue to venture further into some of these regions and also take some stuff out of it in some ways, some unintended deaths, perhaps.

00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:29.039
Like I'm reminded of I'd had a chance to visit Hawaii a couple of years ago, and I had seen some of these stations to go and wash your shoes off on certain trails.

00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:35.039
And I was initially a little confused because I'd never seen really those over here, or I'd never really paid much attention.

00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:44.640
But there's a parasite that causes uh rapid oh here death, which it affects this plant that's endemic to Hawaii and that has cultural significance to the native Hawaii.

00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:54.880
And it's and it's something that can get attached to one's footwear very easily, and that's how you can go and further spread it throughout otherwise uninfected populations.

00:29:54.960 --> 00:30:09.279
And I remember reading about that and seeing that, and it made me think about how the movement of pathogens work in a different way that I just it was unintentional for me because as a human, of course, I'm gonna think about human pathogens, but I don't really think too much about some of these plant pathogens, but they're just as relevant.

00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:13.359
Yeah, and we certainly have tourism to permafrost regions, right?

00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:16.799
Like people, um, I mean it's dark, but they want to see them before they're gone, right?

00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:18.319
And people are going in and out.

00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:24.799
But if you're thawing out something like a plant pathogen and that's just in dust on your shoes, you can track that pretty far.

00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:28.319
And I think a lot about it as if someone who grew up on a farm, bioscuit was super important.

00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:32.960
So you were often like washing your boots and stuff, but I think it's the general day-to-day, you don't consider it.

00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:40.799
So yeah, it's just something to think about that we might be impacting something that already is existing on the very fragile edge of being in an ecosystem.

00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:46.079
And we also don't know what the domino effect repercussions of something like that are.

00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:48.400
So yeah, it's really interesting to think about.

00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:56.160
I would like to also address the point of biosecurity, but from a different angle, not so much from potential pathogens that are being released.

00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:05.359
But Camille talked earlier about the how the Ukraine war has influenced the work, the research, that's the sensing, the surveillance that's going on.

00:31:05.599 --> 00:31:17.119
And I know that the collaborations between countries that have permafrost, so Canada, the US with Alaska, and Russia with Siberia, that they had really good collaborations in the past.

00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:31.759
And I think it was around like 2023, Russian scientists asked their American counterparts, their American colleagues to stop sending funding and communication because they feared of being labeled as a foreign agent by their government.

00:31:32.559 --> 00:31:36.400
And so the data flow from Russia completely stopped.

00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:44.319
And you can imagine it's almost like yes, we have permafrost in Canada and the US, but we have massive amounts of permafrost in Russia.

00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:45.680
And now we have a blind spot.

00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:50.240
We don't have any data that's coming from that area in terms of permafrost.

00:31:50.480 --> 00:31:52.799
And I think that's a big biosecurity issue.

00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:55.039
It's definitely a blind spot that people don't talk about.

00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:55.599
Yeah.

00:31:55.839 --> 00:31:56.079
Yeah.

00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:59.920
And I hadn't even considered it before I was reading more on permafrost.

00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:04.720
It hadn't even occurred to me because you get so caught up and the war is so terrible and people are suffering.

00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:27.119
We're seeing so many health effects just from the war itself that you don't think about how, on the outside, the way that politics influences science and controls where science can be done and what kind of science can be done can end up being something that's going to hobble us in the future to just not know something is happening.

00:32:27.200 --> 00:32:34.559
And if I think you said earlier, like 70% of Russia is permafrost, like that's a huge amount and we don't know.

00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:35.759
We have no idea.

00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:38.480
And there's not a way to kind of keep track of that.

00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:50.319
And I'm grateful in so many ways, like researching this episode, that so many pathogens that we know infect humans, whether they're viral or bacterial, don't necessarily survive being in something like permafrost.

00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:52.079
We know tuberculosis doesn't.

00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:57.279
And we know that because like we've looked at stuff like the Franklin expedition, which was really ill-fated and people died.

00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:05.119
And when they eventually found bodies, these people were iced in and they clearly died of tuberculosis, but there's no viable tuberculosis still there.

00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:08.640
Or like something like Atsy, which I guess isn't technically a permafrost body.

00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:10.960
Christina and I talked about Atsy, the iceman.

00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:12.079
Oh, you mean Etsy?

00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:13.440
Okay, I'm sorry.

00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:15.200
Okay, all right, you say it.

00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:16.640
How do you want to say it?

00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:18.880
Etsy.

00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:23.279
It sounds like you're saying Etsy, like the online store.

00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:24.480
Um okay.

00:33:24.559 --> 00:33:24.640
Yeah.

00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:25.119
Etsy.

00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:26.640
It's defined different.

00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:28.559
Okay, is that the proper way?

00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:29.839
Okay, all right, all right.

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:30.240
Yes.

00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:35.759
Wasn't he found in Switzerland or was he found in Austria?

00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:37.759
I do not remember which.

00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:41.519
I just know that he was entirely encased in ice until hikers found him.

00:33:41.680 --> 00:33:44.000
So not really a permafrost body, but encased in ice.

00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:47.200
So it gives us an idea of something that might be in the permafrost.

00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:55.279
He's the oldest known case of Lyme disease, but they weren't able to culture the bacteria that causes Lyme from his body.

00:33:55.359 --> 00:33:57.039
They only found genetic fragments.

00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:00.799
And so I think that's something to really take away that yes, we want to see surveillance.

00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:09.760
Yes, we want to know what's going on in these regions, because there are other impacts to human health, like with global warming, which is going to affect everyone everywhere.

00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:18.320
But also with things like plant pathogens or things that do persist in soil, I think in particular, is something we worry about in the permafrost.

00:34:18.559 --> 00:34:33.679
And so I think that's something to keep in mind that even though it might not seem like a super direct, oh, you're finding live, viable pathogens of direct concern to human health, that doesn't mean there isn't going to be an impact on human health later, even if it's not immediately something that we see.

00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:36.000
That's an interesting question I have.

00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:43.360
So some viruses, like we know, can be transmitted through respiratory secretions, right?

00:34:43.519 --> 00:34:46.320
Which means that they can jive with water, essentially.

00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:56.800
And when you think about the water cycle and how water moves through, it evaporates and then comes back down in different regions of the world, not necessarily just in the exact same spot.

00:34:57.039 --> 00:35:12.559
I wonder can this melting of the permafrost and the evaporation of this water, can you find viruses that were once endemic in one area in other areas through this water cycle that we see in the transportation with the water cycle?

00:35:12.719 --> 00:35:14.880
I don't know if that's a really silly question.

00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:15.599
It's not.

00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:17.039
But that's just something that I've been thinking about.

00:35:17.679 --> 00:35:24.960
It would be a really interesting question to ask someone who's a phage expert because it literally rains phages, and phages are found in water supplies all over the world.

00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:28.000
And bacteria phages are viruses that infect bacteria.

00:35:28.239 --> 00:35:35.679
I don't know that they would survive something like the free thaw cycles of permafrost, but but I don't I never came across any of them.

00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:37.599
But to find the genetic makeup somewhere else.

00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:40.159
I think that would be a really interesting thing to think about.

00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:46.320
Also because we know, say something like a lot of bacteria can pick up genes from the environment, right?

00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:51.440
From basically their dead comrades essentially, or just you know they find in the environment.

00:35:51.599 --> 00:35:58.320
And I know back in 2017 there was a publication that ancient permafrost staplococci were carrying antibiotic resistance genes.

00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:01.199
So one, that shows us how ancient antibiotic resistance is.

00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:09.679
But two, is there the potential that as you see these thaw cycles and then bacteria eventually start proliferating, might they pick that up from their environment?

00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:10.400
Who knows?

00:36:10.639 --> 00:36:18.960
But that would be really interesting because phages can also basically move antibiotic resistance genes between bacteria.

00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:20.800
So I think that's a really interesting question.

00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:24.159
I don't have an answer for it, but I find that a really fascinating thing to speculate on.

00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:25.039
That's a good question.

00:36:25.199 --> 00:36:25.599
Thank you.

00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:26.800
That's cool.

00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:28.719
I'm gonna think about that the next time it snows.

00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:30.480
Where is this water coming from?

00:36:30.559 --> 00:36:32.719
And like, what is landing on me?

00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:35.039
I love that.

00:36:36.159 --> 00:36:36.960
That's really interesting.

00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:43.280
So I do think though, this is a great segue into getting into so we've talked about viruses, talked about bacteria, but there's other pathogens, right?

00:36:43.360 --> 00:36:45.360
There's prions and parasites and fungi.

00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:47.840
And so I could find very little on this.

00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:49.679
Alex, I don't know if you found more.

00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:52.880
I feel like this has not really hit the science consciousness.

00:36:53.679 --> 00:36:57.360
Let's think about what else besides bacteria and viruses might be lurking.

00:36:57.519 --> 00:37:02.559
What I found super cool, which probably most people have heard about because it hit the news and everyone was very excited about it.

00:37:02.639 --> 00:37:03.920
But this was back in 2018.

00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:06.000
So I was a 17-year-old when this happened.

00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:11.840
In 2018, scientists found two types of microscopic nematodes in the Siberian permafrost.

00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:19.280
And one of them was estimated to be around 46,000 years old based on the dating of a plant matter that was found with those.

00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:22.239
So that's because they could enter cryptobiosis.

00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:27.599
So basically, some creatures are able to just freeze and then thaw again, which I think is really wild.

00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:30.880
Yeah, we have frogs that can do that up where I live.

00:37:30.960 --> 00:37:33.199
And I did not realize, I just thought they were really cute frogs.

00:37:33.519 --> 00:37:34.639
I don't know, I think frogs are neat.

00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:36.079
So I was always like taking pictures of them.

00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:37.519
And then I finally looked up the species.

00:37:37.599 --> 00:37:47.920
It turns out they're basically the ice cube frogs that can just, it's not really anti-freeze, but it basically allows them to get super, super cold without ice crystals forming that would damage the rest of their bodies.

00:37:48.159 --> 00:37:49.840
It's super, super fascinating.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:53.039
So whenever I saw one of them, I was like, oh, you're gonna live through the winter.

00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:54.239
That's so exciting.

00:37:55.280 --> 00:37:56.000
They're very cool.

00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:56.719
They're very cool.

00:37:56.960 --> 00:37:58.400
But yeah, I did not realize that.

00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:06.000
And I don't necessarily know that these are round worms that are actually parasitic to us because Dennis, you know the most about this, probably as the vet.

00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:07.679
There's all kinds of round worms, right?

00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:14.559
And some of them just live in water and they aren't necessarily parasitic and don't necessarily have a host, but a lot of them, the ones we're most familiar with, do.

00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:18.719
But I couldn't find anything on whether or not these were actually considered parasitic.

00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:21.280
Yeah.

00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:35.679
It's not my strong suit, to be honest with you, to tell you what strongloids or whatever are infectious on which ones, but there's definitely a range of ones that even if a human is a dead-end host, that they can cause some sort of a clinical form of disease.

00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:36.079
Right.

00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:36.639
Yeah.

00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:37.360
Yeah.

00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:40.960
And this kind of jumps back to Christina's question earlier.

00:38:41.199 --> 00:38:44.880
I could not find anything on this when I was looking up stuff for the episode.

00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:49.760
So I was really interested in whether or not there's been any prions that have been identified from permafrost.

00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:57.840
And prions for our listeners, those are infectious proteins essentially that can basically infect other proteins into their misfolded conformations.

00:38:58.079 --> 00:39:06.960
And I would have thought that prions would actually be a pretty good candidate for chilling up there in the permafrost and then still being something that could be infectious, right?

00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:13.280
Because they're extremely resistant to decomposition and they can persist beyond freezing and thawing cycles and they can exist in soil.

00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:24.719
So to me, it seems possible that they could be up in the permafrost, which is honestly to me a scarier concept than viruses or bacteria, because I used to study a benign mammalian prion when I was in grad school.

00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:33.199
But I find ones that are infectious very creepy in a way because they're not a virus, they're not a bacteria, they're just a protein that's folded, and then it can just cause all kinds of damage.

00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:36.400
And so I was really surprised that I found nothing.

00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:43.679
Like I could not find anyone that had looked, any research team that was trying to see if there were any prions in permafrost.

00:39:43.760 --> 00:39:45.519
Everyone was looking for viruses and bacteria.

00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:46.960
So I thought that was an oversight.

00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:48.559
Yeah, I agree with you.

00:39:48.639 --> 00:39:52.480
I looked at that too because the prions are near dear to my heart as well.

00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:58.880
And just like you, Camille, I didn't find any documented thawing from permafrost.

00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:00.239
I couldn't find anything.

00:40:00.400 --> 00:40:02.320
I don't know any of that.

00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:12.400
But what I did find is that research on prions has shown that they are actually uniquely suited to persist in these environments for two things.

00:40:12.559 --> 00:40:20.800
So, first of all, when they are in the hydrated state, so combined with water or something, and they are multiple freeze thaws that can actually destroy them.

00:40:21.039 --> 00:40:29.039
But if they are dehydrated before freezing, they are basically largely protected from any degradation, which is crazy.

00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:33.920
And then in addition to that, they also bind the jerky version of crayons.

00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:34.639
Yeah.

00:40:38.559 --> 00:40:39.280
Exactly.

00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:45.920
And then add this to it, they also bind abidly to soil minerals like clay and so on.

00:40:46.079 --> 00:40:49.280
So yeah, they can really stay infectious for years.

00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:58.639
So just some fun facts, but I don't think anybody has ever really so that's the horror novel that we need to read because it's the it'd be the accurate.

00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:02.559
If you're gonna thaw something out, my money would be on it being a prion.

00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:03.840
Just throwing it out there.

00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:10.559
Yeah, but you also need to keep in mind that to in order to infect with a prion, you need really high doses, right?

00:41:10.960 --> 00:41:11.920
This is true, yeah.

00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:16.880
Yeah, unless you're yeah, especially eating the permafrost, you're probably fine.

00:41:18.079 --> 00:41:20.880
But then again, reindeer eating the grass.

00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:24.719
This is how chronic wasting disease is spread in the US.

00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:29.119
That you you have maybe some sort of an abortion or some sort of a still birth.

00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:33.199
You have a lot of the prions on the grass, and then that's how it's transmitted.

00:41:33.360 --> 00:41:34.639
Same with scrapie as well.

00:41:35.199 --> 00:41:36.400
Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:37.360
Yeah, so I don't know.

00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:42.159
I was really surprised that that seemed to me like a really big gap that no one had considered prions.

00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:52.400
And I know that these aren't necessarily regions that were typically inhabited by like really large populations, but there's a lot of evidence that there's been livestock up there.

00:41:52.639 --> 00:42:04.960
There's also, as you mentioned, things like reindeer, and especially I know I think it was in in Greenland where there was like a sheep population with the Norse, and then eventually there were no more Norse and no more sheep there.

00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:11.360
But that doesn't necessarily mean that anything they might have brought with them doesn't necessarily still exist in the permafrost there.

00:42:11.440 --> 00:42:12.719
And I thought that was really interesting.

00:42:12.880 --> 00:42:21.920
I know prayons aren't particular to small ruminants, but I I think of them a lot because scrapies is probably the most widespread one that I can think of.

00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:24.960
But yeah, there's something we worry about a lot with livestock.

00:42:25.119 --> 00:42:40.800
And I could also see that being an issue as these regions do thaw, and maybe it becomes like we're extending the range of what we would consider like farmland or something like that, because it suddenly has these major differences in how the soil is or like how much grass is growing there or whatever.

00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:45.280
And if people are moving livestock up there, you could have the potential that you might see an issue.

00:42:45.440 --> 00:42:45.679
Yeah.

00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:47.119
So that's something I'm thinking on.

00:42:47.199 --> 00:42:50.960
And then also it wouldn't be an infectious science episode if I didn't mention fungi.

00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:52.400
So it's a bias.

00:42:54.800 --> 00:42:59.199
So the fungi are basically doing exactly what bacteria can do, right?

00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:02.480
So like you, they're they're really important for carbon cycling.

00:43:02.639 --> 00:43:10.000
But it's interesting because I would associate a lot of fungus as not loving super cold, not loving super hot, living in that middle.

00:43:10.159 --> 00:43:19.280
But there are some that would be expected to be in this state of survival where they would have like low activity levels and that could persist in like low oxygen, sub-zero environments.

00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:25.840
But as it thaws, those fungi can potentially become active decomposers over the frozen organic material, just like bacteria can.

00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:30.239
And that can lead to greenhouse gas emissions that can then increase the rate of permafrost thawing.

00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:32.880
So again, it contributes to this feedback loop.

00:43:33.039 --> 00:43:40.719
But I also just want to, as we come to the end of the episode, think about there's certainly dangers and we certainly want to preserve the permafrost.

00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:45.440
But there's also so much that we can learn from this because it's thawing out.

00:43:45.679 --> 00:43:45.920
Right.

00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:46.559
Opportunities.

00:43:46.960 --> 00:43:48.639
There's opportunities to learn from it, right?

00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:58.480
So we can kind of start to think about the past of pathogens and their evolution, and we can look at this through like different layers of time, which is really fascinating.

00:43:58.639 --> 00:43:59.760
We can learn so much, like.

00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:11.039
I think, I think a lot about something like PCR never would have existed if some scientists hadn't gone to Yellowstone and been like, wow, this bacteria lives at super high temperatures in these thermal springs.

00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:16.559
And then we have something that we can then adapt later on and develop something like PCR, right?

00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:23.519
It could be super useful to us to find something that exists at these incredibly sub-zero temperatures or in low oxygen environments.

00:44:23.679 --> 00:44:26.880
We don't know what part of the puzzle that might eventually fit into.

00:44:27.039 --> 00:44:28.639
And I think this was really cool stuff.

00:44:28.719 --> 00:44:33.440
Like I learned about paleo parasitology, which honestly sounds like the coolest job ever.

00:44:33.599 --> 00:44:38.000
But this idea that as we see things thawing out, can we do just cool stuff, right?

00:44:38.159 --> 00:44:42.719
Identify parasites that used to interact with now extinct species, something like the woolly mammoth.

00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:48.800
Like now there's been findings of a stomach bot fly that associated with them and various like helmets and things like that.

00:44:48.960 --> 00:44:52.480
And I think that is something that is still really fascinating.

00:44:52.639 --> 00:44:55.840
So I don't think it should just be like, oh, we should be afraid.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:00.639
There are going to be impacts on human health and we need to adapt and we need to protect our environment.

00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:03.519
But also we've done damage.

00:45:03.760 --> 00:45:06.880
What can we also learn from that damage we've done?

00:45:07.039 --> 00:45:14.800
Like, how can we not continue to just cause problems to our permafrost regions, but what can we learn from it because we have?

00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:17.199
Because I think otherwise it's lesson lost.

00:45:17.519 --> 00:45:27.760
Yes, and maybe in addition to all the potential threats and opportunities that we pointed out, we briefly touched on the peoples that live in these areas.

00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:39.119
And we all know that climate change disproportionately affects these areas, these permanent frost areas, compared to maybe just a standard area in the US or something like that.

00:45:39.199 --> 00:45:44.159
So they really see these effects much more dramatically as many of us.

00:45:44.320 --> 00:45:55.599
And so we also have to maybe uh humanize a little bit more their their suffering that they go through due to the change of those native or First Nations and in certain areas.

00:45:55.920 --> 00:45:56.719
Yeah, absolutely.

00:45:57.039 --> 00:45:57.920
I think that's so right.

00:45:58.079 --> 00:46:00.559
That's why I wanted to bring it up at the beginning of the episode.

00:46:00.719 --> 00:46:06.559
And it's important to reiterate that the people who are doing the damage aren't necessarily the people who are going to suffer the most.

00:46:06.719 --> 00:46:12.079
And in many cases, it's just adding disenfranchisement on top of disenfranchisement.

00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:20.159
And so also we can't really quantify what we lose when we start to damage something like the permafrost.

00:46:20.480 --> 00:46:21.840
Because there are people that live there.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:28.880
There's so many different practices that revolve around what that space has traditionally been like climate-wise.

00:46:29.039 --> 00:46:31.760
And that's a major loss that just cannot be quantified.

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:34.239
You can quantify something like infrastructure damage.

00:46:34.400 --> 00:46:43.199
So if your house is damaged by the permafrost thawing because it's sinking, and then there's issues with your foundation, your insurance isn't going to cover it because they don't cover climate change to permafrost.

00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:45.920
Like that's an impact on an individual life, right?

00:46:46.079 --> 00:46:47.440
And it's it's unjust.

00:46:47.599 --> 00:46:56.000
But there are also things that are so far beyond what we can quantify when it becomes this kind of human aspect that we don't always even know what we're losing.

00:46:56.079 --> 00:47:05.679
And a lot of times I think it's because we're not necessarily listening or looking to groups that do have wisdom about these places and do have knowledge about where they're living and what it has traditionally looked like.

00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:08.960
If you think of how that shifts something like an oral history, right?

00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:12.400
Of where someone is, it's an intense change.

00:47:12.800 --> 00:47:13.039
Sure.

00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:13.840
Absolutely.

00:47:14.079 --> 00:47:18.000
So are we gonna release the new super bug from the permafrost?

00:47:18.559 --> 00:47:19.360
I hope not.

00:47:21.199 --> 00:47:22.159
I certainly hope not.

00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:25.440
It seems unlikely with what we've discussed, all things considered, right?

00:47:25.760 --> 00:47:40.639
Because a number of, as I think you pointed out, Camille, at the beginning of the episode, a number of these pathogens have significant issues in terms of it's it's not like those uh sci-fi novels of the zombie virus that emerges, you know, uh you're frozen from the depths, right?

00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:44.880
That was that kind.

00:47:48.400 --> 00:47:50.960
I'll take your word as to the merits of those books.

00:47:51.119 --> 00:47:54.880
Um I have many recommendations.

00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:57.840
If anyone wants to reach out, let me know.

00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:11.840
But yeah, I think that there are significant uh challenges that still remain as a result of the freestyle cycle that would likely make it difficult for the next super bug to come from the permafrost.

00:48:12.159 --> 00:48:25.679
But as the anthrax outbreak has shown, and as we were talking about some of these plant pathogens, some of which could still be viable, it's still something that we have to be cognizant of and be wary of and perhaps take proactive steps to go about mitigating some of these effects.

00:48:25.920 --> 00:48:26.159
Yeah.

00:48:26.320 --> 00:48:46.719
And I think to add to that, it's not necessarily that we might be releasing a superbrogue from the permafrost, but if we're thawing it and we're seeing an increase in global warming because of fungi and bacteria that are being released from it, that is going to impact like the wild weather events that we're seeing that might lead to cutoffs from medical care.

00:48:46.880 --> 00:48:52.159
And also, we know that global warming is increasing where vector species can range, right?

00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:56.559
Is malaria going to be coming to a city near you soon because you've thawed the permafrost?

00:48:56.639 --> 00:48:57.119
I don't know.

00:48:57.280 --> 00:49:00.639
So it's not necessarily I'm worried about something coming out of the permafrost.

00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:02.320
It's a non-zero possibility.

00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:12.159
It could happen, but I more think about everything else that we know is already happening because of global warming that the permafrost is leading into.

00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:19.920
And so that's where I really think it's going to be leading in a way, indirectly, to the next major challenges we see in health.

00:49:20.320 --> 00:49:20.800
Absolutely.

00:49:21.119 --> 00:49:21.920
No, absolutely.

00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:27.119
I'm sad that we have so little uh cultural references in our podcast.

00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:38.320
We used to have a lot, but I was just thinking about all the sci-fi movies that I've watched where some alien was stuck in the ice and then somebody like it either thought it was somebody drilled.

00:49:38.639 --> 00:49:39.440
That's a good trope.

00:49:39.840 --> 00:49:45.360
So the predator, was it the predator series, but it was like stuck in Predators versus Aliens.

00:49:45.599 --> 00:49:45.920
Yeah.

00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:51.599
So we should have dug more into movies and how movies use this this topic.

00:49:52.719 --> 00:49:55.920
Yeah, I feel like I've not watched a ton of pathogen horror movies.

00:49:56.000 --> 00:49:57.360
I can't watch horror movies.

00:49:57.440 --> 00:49:59.760
I like I don't sleep afterwards for weeks.

00:50:00.480 --> 00:50:02.079
But I read a lot of horror.

00:50:03.679 --> 00:50:05.760
And I feel like it's such a good trope.

00:50:05.920 --> 00:50:09.440
I think part of what makes it good horror is there's this desolation aspect, right?

00:50:09.599 --> 00:50:11.039
But that's also a misnomer, right?

00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:12.159
These places aren't desolate.

00:50:12.239 --> 00:50:12.960
They're full of life.

00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:15.440
There's entire ecosystems, there's people that live up there.

00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:17.599
But I think that's what a lot of those lean on.

00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:22.480
It's like the same thing as Jaws, like something coming from below, like something that you can't see, right?

00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:24.880
It's in the ice, it's in the water, whatever.

00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:25.119
Yeah.

00:50:25.360 --> 00:50:26.960
And I think that's where it comes from.

00:50:27.199 --> 00:50:29.440
But that's also the horror of it, right?

00:50:29.519 --> 00:50:37.679
Is that you're so busy looking at the ice melting that you don't think about what's happening 2,000 miles away because that ice is melting, right?

00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:40.320
And because you're seeing this release of greenhouse gases.

00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:41.360
So yeah.

00:50:42.239 --> 00:51:08.400
And if I may, to build off of what Camille was saying about some of the more distant effects, perhaps, of some of these issues that we've been talking about, because we've talked a bit about the implications of permafrost melt on these indigenous groups that live in these areas that would be most proximal to the issue and most directly affected by the loss of this permafrost and some of the cultural changes that may come as a result of some of these things, et cetera.

00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:20.559
But something that I was also reminded of was how the implications of climate change writ large are certainly something of which permafrost Yamalt is only an example of, is certainly something that reaches in far more distant ways.

00:51:20.639 --> 00:51:25.119
I was reminded of the when the discussion turned to the more cultural side of things.

00:51:25.280 --> 00:51:40.320
Australia and Tuvalu recently, right, reached an agreement in 2024 that was really important in terms of recognizing the continued sovereignty of Tuvalu, even in the face of sea level rise that will likely end up engulfing the island nation.

00:51:40.480 --> 00:51:52.880
And importantly, uh, you know, invested quite a bit of um resources towards preservation of the culture of the Tuvaluan people and towards mitigating some of the effects of the migration that may be associated from that.

00:51:52.960 --> 00:52:18.880
Because for those who live in these areas who ascribe cultural and personal significance to these lands, despite the fact that those lands may very well be underwater in a hundred years' time or even less than that, I think that it's important to think now about the implications of going and working on maintaining still those cultural practices, those traditions, and still keeping those alive regardless as to the effects that climate change will have on the land itself.

00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:27.039
It doesn't necessarily have to affect or have to so strongly affect some of these cultural practices that may surround the people of that land.

00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:31.119
And I think efforts like that with Australia and Tuvalu is a great step in that direction.

00:52:31.360 --> 00:52:33.280
Yeah, I think that's a wonderful example.

00:52:33.360 --> 00:52:34.639
And I think you're absolutely right.

00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:36.320
Because that's also part of health, right?

00:52:36.480 --> 00:52:50.320
Where's your cultural health in a way that's so important for your psychological and physical health and your well-being as a person and as a human and just as someone who's part of a broader community and recognizing that shared humanity is also really important.

00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:55.760
And even beyond that, too, like the cultural significance of other things like animals that we're putting at risk, right?

00:52:55.840 --> 00:53:04.480
Like in an Arctic region, we're certainly putting so many animals that might be traditionally food supplies or also something that just had an even more significant meaning.

00:53:04.559 --> 00:53:09.360
And so I think that there's this aspect of how do we recognize what we're doing?

00:53:09.519 --> 00:53:11.679
I feel like we keep touching the burning stove, right?

00:53:11.760 --> 00:53:19.599
We keep touching the burning stove with climate change and with these big shifts we're making in our environment, but we touch the burning stove and then we forget about it.

00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:22.000
And so we don't want to just keep burning ourselves, right?

00:53:22.079 --> 00:53:34.400
How do we remember what we've learned and actually face it and look at it and be like, yeah, like we we've done something we can't repair, but how do we move forward into a future where we can still try to honor that shared humanity?

00:53:34.480 --> 00:53:35.840
So I really love that example, Alex.

00:53:36.079 --> 00:53:36.400
Thanks.

00:53:36.719 --> 00:53:37.039
All right.

00:53:37.199 --> 00:53:38.400
Who's gonna wrap it up?

00:53:38.639 --> 00:53:40.239
You no, Christina.

00:53:40.639 --> 00:53:41.840
Christina, take us away.

00:53:42.079 --> 00:53:47.440
I feel like we covered a pretty broad base of information regarding permafrost.

00:53:47.679 --> 00:53:53.840
I mean from viruses to anthrax to other bacteria to fungi to prions, even.

00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:09.679
So I think that is a pretty good synopsis of permafrost and at least the effects that permafrost has or could have on our environment in the future, not only the world around us in total, not only the biological environment, but the cultural.

00:54:10.079 --> 00:54:10.960
Do you guys have anything else?

00:54:11.360 --> 00:54:12.000
No, absolutely.

00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:13.840
It was like an interesting episode.

00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:18.000
Thanks everybody, and I hope the listeners enjoyed this episode.

00:54:18.079 --> 00:54:19.679
I did, I certainly did, for sure.

00:54:20.800 --> 00:54:21.440
Interesting.

00:54:22.079 --> 00:54:22.559
Bye guys.

00:54:22.719 --> 00:54:23.599
See you next time.

00:54:24.719 --> 00:54:27.280
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00:54:27.440 --> 00:54:35.360
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