Ari Daniel
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Researchers sampled 10 mammoths.
They then painstakingly extracted and analyzed RNA, the molecule that translates DNA into the building of an actual organism.
Most of it was too fragmented, but three of the mammoths had sufficient material to analyze.
In one of the best-preserved animals, Stockholm University paleogeneticist Löwe Dahlen and his colleagues found RNA related to muscle function and stress.
Delen says the results point the way to the potential study of ancient RNA viruses that have infected humans over millennia.
For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.
University of Rochester biologist Vera Gerbanova had good reason to be interested in animals that can live more than 200 years.
She connected with an Alaskan Inuit community that provided her with tissue samples from animals collected during their subsistence hunt.
She and her colleagues found that bowhead cells were far better at DNA repair than human cells, an ability due, at least in part, to a particular protein.
Girbanova says boosting the level of this protein in humans might one day help slow down our accumulation of mutations, reducing the risk of cancer.
University of Rochester biologist Vera Gerbanova had good reason to be interested in animals that can live more than 200 years.
She connected with an Alaskan Inuit community that provided her with tissue samples from animals collected during their subsistence hunt.
She and her colleagues found that bowhead cells were far better at DNA repair than human cells, an ability due, at least in part, to a particular protein.
Girbanova says boosting the level of this protein in humans might one day help slow down our accumulation of mutations, reducing the risk of cancer.
A new study examined the ancient DNA found in the teeth of 13 of Napoleon's soldiers exhumed from a mass grave in Lithuania.
Researchers found that two bacteria, one that causes paratyphoid fever and the other relapsing fever, had likely helped kill the men.
These results, along with earlier work, reveal the soldiers were under microbial assault on all fronts.
Michaela Binder is a bioarchaeologist who wasn't involved in the study.