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Million-year-old DNA from mammoth teeth found in Siberia is oldest genome ever sequenced
It’s not quite Jurassic Park, but scientists have successfully extracted and reconstructed million-year-old DNA from mammoth teeth — and solved a couple of mysteries about the creatures’ evolutionary history along the way.
Key points:
- Researchers extracted, sequenced and decoded DNA from three mammoth teeth
- They calculated the ages of the teeth to 1.65 million, 1.34 million and 870,000 years, making it the oldest DNA sequenced so far
- Genetic data showed evidence of hybridisation and a potential new species
The study, led by a Swedish team, smashed the record for the oldest DNA so far sequenced. The previous record-holder was DNA from a horse that trotted around Canada around 700,000 years ago.
Reporting in the journal Nature, the team also…
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