Ice Age DNA May Now Be Sequenced

New Scientist ^ | 8-15-2006

[blam]

Ice Age DNA may now be sequenced

15 August 2006

JURASSIC PARK here we come? Not quite, but we might now be able to sequence the genomes of mammoths and even Neanderthals, thanks to a new way to correct the errors in sequencing ancient DNA that are made because it degrades over time.

When Svante Pääbo's group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, analysed DNA from 50 to 50,000-year-old bone samples from wolves, a single error stood out: one of DNA's "letters", cytosine, had degraded in such a way that sequencing machines misinterpreted it as the letter thymine. Comparison of ancient DNA with a closely related modern species could allow such errors to be identified and corrected (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073 pnas.0605327103).

This opens the way for sequencing species that died out during the last ice age, says Pääbo.

From issue 2564 of New Scientist magazine, 15 August 2006, page 15

[blam]

GGG Ping?

[vladimir998]

Svante Pääbo ?

I am betting this person is of Estonian heritage.

[colinhester]

There was a short article in the latest Discover magazine on this. Cool stuff.

[Sentis]

Good I honestly thought that the Japanese idea of an Ice Age park sorta like Jurrasic Park was a really good idea. Can't wait to see it.

[Texan5]

Very, very interesting-but would they have to set aside parkland in Alaska and Siberia for for the cloned mammoths to live and graze on? I can't imagine they could live in the hot climate other elephants live in. And would the cloned Neanderthals make my favorite Geico commercial a reality-and they would be wearing preppy clothes and ordering duck with mango salsa in chi-chi restaurants?

[kinghorse]

Mango Salsa Ping

[Tallguy]

GATTACA

[Samurai_Jack]

Already been done!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

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[wyattearp]

Very, very interesting-but would they have to set aside parkland in Alaska and Siberia for for the cloned mammoths to live and graze on?

Naw, we could just give them Canada. Nobody'd notice.

[SunkenCiv]

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