The 52,000-year-old freeze-dried remains of a woolly mammoth were so remarkably preserved that scientists were recently able to reconstruct its genome. Their discovery not only unearths new information about these ancient creatures but reveals a new kind of natural preservation that could open the door to studying other intact ancient animals.
“This is fascinating because this is a new type of fossil,” says Michele Di Pierro, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern University who was one of many researchers involved in the research that was published in Cell. “Typically, we see in fossils the displacement of organic material with minerals, and that preserves larger structures. Here, this is a molecular fossil. Here we’re talking about each piece of DNA … is in exactly the same position as it was 50,000 years ago.”
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