Thanks for the input, mchn. I just quoted the article and didn't see that mistake.
My mistake! I'm Sorry
Indeed! Viruses can remain viable over long periods outside the host cell.
No worries... You probaby don't read my posts. This is an extract from an older post.... Viruses do rise from the grave, literally.
"Recently in 2016, some researchers in Lithuania and Finland hoping to gather DNA from a more obscure virus collected tissue from the mummified remains of a young child found within the
mid-17th century crypt of the Dominican Church. The child had no visible pox marks, but when the researchers sent the sample of the ancient DNA there was a big surprise. The sample was rich with variola, the virus that causes smallpox. The large quantity of the virus allowed the researchers to construct a high-quality copy of its genome, the first from such an old virus.
The other surprise was that this viral DNA shared many distinct features with modern strains of the variola virus, including several mutations, suggesting they were closely related. The researchers built a family tree of 49 modern strains and the child’s ancient one, and traced the evolution of all of them back to a
common ancestor that arose between 1530 and 1654 C.E."
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