Dna: The Secret of Life by James Watson

Author:James Watson [Watson, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

To everyone's surprise, the debate has been resolved by DNA: 30,000-year-old DNA extracted in 1997 from the very bones that started it all in 1856. Having evolved in order to store information securely and transmit it from one generation to the next, DNA, no surprise, shows great chemical stability. It doesn't degrade spontaneously or react readily with other molecules. But it is not impervious to chemical damage. At the moment of death, the body's genetic materials, like all its other constituents, become susceptible to a horde of would-be degraders: reactive chemicals, and enzymes that break down the molecular fabric. These chemical reactions require the presence of water, so DNA may be preserved if a corpse dehydrates fast enough. But even under ideal preservation conditions, the molecule is likely to survive perhaps 50,000 years at the absolute maximum. To obtain a legible DNA sequence from 30,000-year-old Neanderthal remains, preserved imperfectly, was therefore a tall order at best.

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