Al Fresco

Last week (Friday as I recall) I caught the tail end of an interview on NPR in which a team of scientists discussed results of studies that invovled extracting "intact" DNA from tundra soil. According to the interview, this DNA could be matched with DNA obtained (by other means) from ancient mammoths, musk oxen, etc. Although I did not hear all the details, I believe that they claimed some of this soil had been dated to at least 400,000 years old.

Is anyone aware of any confirmatory information regarding this claim? It has always been my impression that DNA is too unstable to survive such extended periods of exposure in soil - even under sub-freezing conditions.

If this work is authenticated, how long will it take YECs to trumpet these findings as yet another of their "proofs" that mainstream science is hiding the truth about the age of the earth?

Asha'man

I read about this in several places, here is a link to the article on the Scientific American website.

Here is the one from New Scientist.com

I think the YECs will just ignore this evidence, along with everything else they deny, because the dates are older than 6000 years.

Al Fresco

Thank you for the references.

You may be correct in assuming that the YECs will ignore these findings. On the other hand, they may argue that, since other studies have shown DNA to be relatively unstable in soil, these new studies "prove" that age dating methodologies are in error. This would be similar to the approach Answers in Genesis took regarding the supposed discovery of "intact" red blood cells in dinosaur bones.

We shall see.

Dr.GH

The original article was in last week's Science Magazine, but I haven't been able to read it yet.

Coragyps

Doc - It appears to be e-published only right now - it's up on www.sciencemag.org, but likely needs a subscription to read. The third author is a Jonas Binladin, so the fundies will be able to dismiss the whole thing as a Atheistic Moslem AntiAmerican Evilutionist Plot anyway.