Several giant viruses have been discovered in the past decade, and although they have all turned out to be harmless, the findings have sparked fears that one day, humans could unearth a dangerous prehistoric pathogen. “It’s possible that viruses from similar viral families, or previously discovered virus families, turn out to be [harmful] pathogens,” said Jean-Michel Claverie, head of France’s Structural and Genomic Information laboratory (IGS), a unit of the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), in Marseille.

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