Although it had been locked in permafrost for thirty thousand years, when injected into an amoeba, it sprang into action with the lustiness of youth. Luckily, P. sibericum proved not to infect humans, but who knows what else may be out there waiting to be uncovered? A rather more common manifestation of viral patience is seen in the varicella-zoster virus. This is the virus that gives you chicken pox when you are small, but then may sit inert in nerve cells for half a century or more before erupting in that horrid and painful indignity of old age known as shingles. It is usually described as a
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