Palaeontology

Breakthrough as mammoth chromosomes found preserved in ice

By T.K. Randall
July 11, 2024

Image: AI-generated (Bing AI / Dall-E 3) De-extinction might seem like science fiction right now, but over the next few years we could see the first ever extinct animal (such as a thylacine, mammoth or dodo) being brought back to life.

Now a new discovery in the Siberian permafrost has made this eventuality seem closer than ever.

Dating back 52,000 years, the remains have been described as "a new type of fossil" owing to the fact that they exhibit a level of preservation so great that the animal's chromosomes are still intact.

Essentially a section of frozen mammoth skin, this "beef jerky" even has long tufts of hair on it.Such an immaculate level of preservation is unusual because mammoth remains are usually damaged due to repeated thawing and freezing over thousands of years.

This example, however, was thought to have been 'flash frozen' and never once thawed out.

"The variance that you're able to capture with this mammoth genome is opening a new door for comparison between species," said study co-author Cynthia Perez Estrada.

"Just having that footprint of the chromatin organization in three-dimensional space is incredible."

52,000-year-old scrap of woolly mammoth skin reveals 3D shape of its DNA for 1st time ever https://t.co/QQdtGhjdPl

- Jiggy Sevilla (@JiggySevilla) July 11, 2024

Source: Gizmodo

Tags: Mammoth