Albuquerque, N.M. - (AP) - Cellulose dating back 253 million years - along with some possible ancient DNA - has been found in salt crystals from an underground nuclear waste dump in southern New Mexico.

"We did see some ancient DNA in the salt, but not a lot, and we have to continue experiments to try to verify that it is ancient DNA," said Jack D. Griffith, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

The cellulose - the same microscopic stuff in wood or cotton - was in water locked in tiny cubes of clear and reddish-brown salt crystals at the federal government's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.

The crystals were taken from newly mined areas 2,000 feet below WIPP's desert surface last fall and a couple of years ago.

Griffith said he thinks looking for cellulose in salt deposits is a good way to go searching for life on other planets because cellulose is tough.

Cellulose is "a fairly simple structure. And it's probably a fairly simple step for the earliest life forms a couple of billion years ago to start stringing these things together one after another," Griffith said.

"Cellulose is extremely stable, but it's also by far the single most abundant molecule on the planet," Griffith said. Plants, algae and bacteria generate about 100 gigatons of cellulose a year, he said.
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