Scientists have brought back to life the blood of ancient mammoths and hope to use the technique to study extinct Australian marsupials including the giant kangaroo.
The researchers used DNA preserved in bones from Siberian specimens 25,000 to 43,000 years old to bring the primary component of mammoth blood back to life, says one of the team, Adelaide University's Professor Alan Cooper. It meant they could measure how mammoths functioned as if they were still alive.
"No one has done that before, to actually bring back a complex protein and test it to see how it works," Prof Cooper said.
"The principle is fairly simple, you could certainly do it on a variety of other species or other proteins, and you are able to access all sorts of these extinct species.
No comments:
Post a Comment