Photo: Paul Souders / Stone / Getty Images
Concerned scientists are warning that ancient "zombie viruses" that could be unleashed from the melting Arctic ice due to global warming.
Infectious diseases experts say, "The defrosting of the Arctic permafrost could one day unleash a major disease outbreak and they could possibly start a deadly new pandemic."
Permafrost covers one-fifth of the northern hemisphere and is made up of sub-zero soil that has been frozen for hundreds of thousands of years, according to scientists.
They say it could contain a zombie virus after studies found a viral strain capable of infecting cells from 48,500-year-old sample in Siberia.
The also worry is that “Our immune systems may have never been in contact with some of those microbes and an unknown virus once infecting a Neanderthal could come back at us, although unlikely, it's a real possibility.”