Angela pushed her glasses farther up her nose and scribbled another note.
“So we began doing tests on the new virus particles,” said Tally. “One advantage of Laptev virus and other Megaviridae is that they are so large that it doesn’t take an electron microscope to see them, as it would your average garden-variety viruses which are hundreds or thousands of times smaller.”
“Yes, we’ve actually even gotten a visual of a few of them on a light microscope. It was so cool, though you can’t make out any details at that magnification. They basically just look like a tiny bacillus shapes,” added Drew.
“I still don’t get it. If the viruses are surfacing all around,” said Emile, “how come other groups of workers in the area haven’t gotten sick? Even with thicker capsids, I mean, eventually some of them would have thinned naturally, it seems, and then caused an infection.”
“Well, we wondered that too,” said Drew, obviously proud to be sharing how much they had advanced in such a short time period. “We know that the Siberian permafrost has a neutral pH, which is why it’s such a great medium in which DNA viruses can survive for millennia. So that gave us an idea. One of the effects of overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide has been the gradual acidification of the ocean. The pH hasn’t changed all that much, since the ocean’s saline content makes it react like a giant buffer.”
“Sorry, can you remind me what a buffer is?” asked Angela, with the confidence of one whose ignorance is not linked to her pride. After all, Angela’s company was paying big money for this research, and she had every right to interrupt the flow of conversation to be sure that she understood what was going on.
“A buffer is a solution that doesn’t change pH when you add a bit of an acid or a bit of a base to it,” said Tally. Sarah remembered how much she loved to explain things. Perhaps she would become a professor some day. “If you have an unbuffered solution and you add some acid, the pH will drop. Buffers are especially important for living cells because a change in pH can kill them. So we work with buffers in the lab quite extensively.”
“So you’re saying the ocean is a buffer?” asked Angela.
“Sure. It’s because of its high salt content. I can explain the intricacies of the chemistry if you want, but suffice it to say that if the ocean wasn’t a buffer, life would not have begun on this planet. Another common buffer is blood.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it. Please carry on,” said Angela, turning back to Drew. “You were saying something about the ocean being a buffer.”
“Yes,” said Drew. “So after absorbing literally tons and tons of carbon dioxide which we humans have pumped into the air for the last one hundred and fifty years, and which turns into carbonic acid when it mixes with the water, the ocean’s pH has been lowered by about a tenth of a pH unit. However, if you understand the way the pH scale works, it is logarithmic, so that tiny change really means that the ocean’s acidity has increased by 25%, which, not surprisingly, has been enough to wipe out entire coral reefs and kill millions of sea creatures.”
“And alter the capsid of one Laptev virus strain?” asked Rhonda.
Drew and Tally nodded in unison.
“Yes ma’am,” said Tally. “It turns out that one Laptev virus strain is quite sensitive to the slightly lowered pH of sea water. As modern people drill down through the melting permafrost and into the ocean for oil wells, the sea water has more of an opportunity to interact with the thawing soil.”
Sarah remembered watching a documentary, just a few weeks ago, about the Arctic and how quickly everything was melting. She and John had commented on the irony of the beauty of the ice even as the glaciers diminished. Whole chunks, some the size of Manhattan, were breaking off in Greenland. All of this was before she had ever heard of Laptev and she had had no idea at the time how relevant that information would soon be.
“So we took a closer look at the situation,” continued Tally, “and we decided to focus on elucidating how the ocean water was interacting with the capsid to change it.” Tally nodded to Drew and he projected a large electron microscope photograph of the Laptev virus. “As you can see, it has an elongated shape with what looks like some sort of an opening at one end,” she said, pointing with her pen.
“Kind of reminds me of an ancient vessel, you know, one of those you see at the museums,” said Miquela.
“Actually, the technical name is amphora shaped, and you’re right, Miquela, the name of the shape comes from a Greek or Roman jar,” said Tally, smiling at her. Definitely a professor, thought Sarah.
“Well, I don’t know about that. More than a Roman water jug, to me it kind of looks more like a corndog that someone yanked the stick out of,” said Shane, irreverently.
Emile quickly shushed him, but Shane continued, unabated. “It does! I mean, take a look at those little hair thingies on the end there,” he said, pointing to the top right hand corner where one part of the viral capsid did not meet the other end. “That little fringe action there. That’s where the stick was before someone pulled it out. Except it looks all empty, like they must’ve taken the hot dog too.”
Sarah gave him a withering look and he shrugged his shoulders as if he had no idea why she could possibly be upset with him.
Drew stood up, possibly hoping to distract attention from Shane by drawing everyone’s eyes to his tall, lean stature. “As it turns out,” he said, his voice strong and confident, “the increased acidity of the ocean is not only changing the morphology of the capsid, removing that layer of hydrocarbons, but it’s also seeping in through the lipid bilayer that lines the capsid, and reaching the viral DNA, which it primes to get it ready to infect host cells.”
“Whoa, I’m sorry to interrupt again here,” said Angela, making a ‘time out’ sign with her hands, “but you just lost me. Would you mind backtracking and saying some of that in English, please.”
Tally smiled and took over the explanation. “Viruses, you see, aren’t active aggressors like many pathogenic bacteria—the ones that make you sick, ‘cause you know that all bacteria don’t make you sick, right? People think that all bacteria are bad, and the truth is that the vast majority of them are not at all interested in eating us.”
Angela smiled.
“Okay, cool, so bacteria, the pathogenic ones, they attack their way into cells, kind of like biting or tearing their way in, except, of course, they don’t have mouths. But viruses, they aren’t alive or anything so they can’t fight their way into the cell they want to infect. Instead they mimic a chemical compound that the cell would normally take in through its membrane.”
“Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Shane, and then changing his voice to a higher pitch he said, “Let me in, let me in, little pig, I’ve brought you something nice to eat.”
Sarah was about to ask Shane to leave the room, but Angela chuckled and placed her hand lightly on Sarah’s forearm. Sarah immediately understood that Angela was reassuring her that Shane’s behavior was not bothering her. Sarah glanced at Rhonda who also gave her a small nod. They were all enjoying the conversation.
“I think I get it,” said Angela, still smiling. “So you’re saying that the Laptev virus, if it had never came in contact with ocean water, it might not have made anyone sick?”
Tally nodded. “Well, that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but yes, that’s the general drift.”
“And that means,” said Rhonda, “that any other drilling sites in the Arctic could still be in danger as the ocean’s water could wear away at the capsids.”