X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Ancient DNA


Environment Institute University of Adelaide

The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) undertakes research on the evolution and environmental change across time through the use of preserved genetic records from human, animal, plant and sedimentary remains.

Rhacophorus bipunctatus

Ancient DNA sequence analyses of the original type specimens would be necessary to resolve the remaining questions.


Archaeogenetics of the Near East

It was reported in the PBS description of the National Geographic TV Special on this study entitled "Quest for the Phoenicians" that ancient DNA was included in this study as extracted from the tooth of a 2500 year-old Phoenician mummy.

The archaeogenetics of the Near East involves the study of DNA or ancient DNA, identifying haplogroups and haplotypes of ancient skeletal remains from both Y-DNA, and mtDNA and other autosomal DNA for populations of the Ancient Near East (i.e., the modern Middle East including Egypt, Iran (Persia), Iraq (Mesopotamia), the Levant, Turkey (Anatolia), Arabia, Northern Africa, etc.

Contamination from handling and intrusion from microbes create obstacles to the recovery of Ancient DNA.

George Poinar, Jr.

In 1992 a team consisting of Poinar, his wife, his son Hendrik, and Dr. Raúl J. Cano of California Polytechnic State University successfully extracted insect DNA from a Lebanese weevil in amber that was 125 million years old, but more recent studies of ancient DNA cast doubt on the results.

Grey Trembler

However, in April 2000 ancient DNA analysis of that skin in the Smithsonian Institution led by Storrs Olson had shown that the Liverpool specimen was nothing more than a misidentified and mislabled albinistic specimen of C.

Haplogroup I-M438

Two samples (10%) of ancient Y-DNA from Treilles, the type-site of a Late Neolithic group of farmers on the east Pyrenees shore on France's southern border, dated to about 3000 BC tested positive for M438 and P37.2.


see also

Ketevan the Martyr

Niraj Rai of the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India carried out ancient DNA analysis on these human bone remains excavated from the St. Augustine convent by sequencing and genotyping of the Mitochondrial DNA.

Poinar

Hendrik Poinar (born 1969), a American evolutionary biologist specializing in ancient DNA, son of George