Piney Posted December 12, 2017 #1 Share Posted December 12, 2017 https://phys.org/news/2017-12-dinosaur-parasites-million-year-old-amber-blood-sucking.html 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herr Falukorv Posted December 13, 2017 #2 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Gaaaaaaah ticks I hate ticks! So these parasites have plagued the world for at least 100.000.000 years. Damn 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paperdyer Posted December 13, 2017 #3 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Nice to know that bugs bugged dinos as they do us. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_KB_ Posted December 13, 2017 #4 Share Posted December 13, 2017 ... can we clone dinos now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyDocMartens Posted December 15, 2017 #5 Share Posted December 15, 2017 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowSot Posted December 15, 2017 #6 Share Posted December 15, 2017 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnoferox Posted December 15, 2017 #7 Share Posted December 15, 2017 (edited) 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 December 15, 2017 by Carnoferox 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowSot Posted December 15, 2017 #8 Share Posted December 15, 2017 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. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_KB_ Posted December 15, 2017 #9 Share Posted December 15, 2017 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnoferox Posted December 15, 2017 #10 Share Posted December 15, 2017 (edited) 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 December 15, 2017 by Carnoferox 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_KB_ Posted December 15, 2017 #11 Share Posted December 15, 2017 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnoferox Posted December 15, 2017 #12 Share Posted December 15, 2017 (edited) 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 December 15, 2017 by Carnoferox 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_KB_ Posted December 16, 2017 #13 Share Posted December 16, 2017 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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