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Dinosaur Parasites Trapped in Amber


Piney

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Gaaaaaaah ticks I hate ticks! 
So these parasites have plagued the world for at least 100.000.000 years.
Damn 

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Nice to know that bugs bugged dinos as they do us.

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Does this imply that if a tick that is fully immersed in amber is found, we might be able to extract it's host's DNA? 

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1 hour ago, DirtyDocMartens said:

Does this imply that if a tick that is fully immersed in amber is found, we might be able to extract it's host's DNA? 

We might get fragments. Which we already have done. Some fossils have been preserved with soft tissue. But DNA has a half life of a few thousand years. It's just to old. 

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On 12/13/2017 at 11:36 AM, _KB_ said:

... can we clone dinos now?

 

2 hours ago, DirtyDocMartens said:

Does this imply that if a tick that is fully immersed in amber is found, we might be able to extract it's host's DNA? 

 

1 hour ago, ShadowSot said:

We might get fragments. Which we already have done. Some fossils have been preserved with soft tissue. But DNA has a half life of a few thousand years. It's just to old. 

No DNA is preserved in insects encased in amber as it only has a half life of 521 years. While there were a few reports of DNA being recovered from amber inclusions in the 1990's, the results were not able to be independently replicated and turned out to be modern contamination.

Edited by Carnoferox
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Just now, Carnoferox said:

 

 

No, DNA is not at all preserved in insects encased in amber as it only has a half life of 521 years. While there were a few reports of DNA being recovered from amber inclusions in the 1990's, the results were not able to be independently replicated and turned out to be modern contamination.

Ah, I never followed up on that. My mistake. And I had completely misremembered the half life of DNA, thanks for the correction.

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3 hours ago, Carnoferox said:

 

 

No DNA is preserved in insects encased in amber as it only has a half life of 521 years. While there were a few reports of DNA being recovered from amber inclusions in the 1990's, the results were not able to be independently replicated and turned out to be modern contamination.

while it is likely that there is no usable dna, but theoretically there might be a slight chance of dna being preserved... this is given perfect circumstances and preferably a really large blood sucking insect

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5 hours ago, _KB_ said:

while it is likely that there is no usable dna, but theoretically there might be a slight chance of dna being preserved... this is given perfect circumstances and preferably a really large blood sucking insect

DNA completely degrades by around 6.8 millions years, which is far younger than the Cretaceous Burmese amber deposits. 

Edited by Carnoferox
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3 hours ago, Carnoferox said:

DNA completely degrades by around 6.8 millions years, which is far younger than the Cretaceous Burmese amber deposits. 

not necessarily, do you know why DNA degrades? 

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4 hours ago, _KB_ said:

not necessarily, do you know why DNA degrades? 

Yes DNA does degrade completely by that time due to environmental factors (read Allentoft et al. 2012). Amber does not actually provide any preservational advantages for DNA and it degrades even more quickly than in bone. Copal (resin that is not fully fossilized into amber) with insect inclusions that was less than 60 years old was tested in Penney et al. (2013), which failed to find any DNA in a sample even that young.

Edited by Carnoferox
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On 12/16/2017 at 0:05 AM, Carnoferox said:

Yes DNA does degrade completely by that time due to environmental factors (read Allentoft et al. 2012). Amber does not actually provide any preservational advantages for DNA and it degrades even more quickly than in bone. Copal (resin that is not fully fossilized into amber) with insect inclusions that was less than 60 years old was tested in Penney et al. (2013), which failed to find any DNA in a sample even that young.

In that case I misunderstood what ember means, sorry English is not my first language, i thought it was something else entirely

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