MELTDOWN

All humanity under threat as time-travelling viruses escape from ice amid climate change

- JERRY LAWTON

TIME-travelling viruses sealed in permafrost for thousands of years could wreak havoc as ice melts due to global warming.

Boffins reckon the frozen pathogens could leak into the world, sparking pandemics and destroying civilisation, in a mirror image of Ice Age disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow.

Scientists from the European Commission Joint Research Center fear once they are at large, the organisms could evolve to become dominant freeliving species.

Last year scientists announced they had revived a 48,500-year-old virus found in melting Siberian permafrost.