For this week's blog, I chose this topic because I've always been fascinated by the beginning. The beginning of time, the beginning of life, the beginning of a species and how it's transformed over time. In a recent study, researchers have discovered proteins in ancient eggshells that has the information to discover DNA almost 50 times older than what they thought had been known. This could in turn provide more facts and insight to how animals and humans interacted in every-day life and why some animals became extinct while others were able to thrive in the conditions they were given and able to evolve over time. The ostrich eggshells come from well-dated sites in Tanzania and South Africa which are known for their extreme heat and harsh conditions. Originally researchers had thought that protein would not survive in the harsh conditions, but upon researching more and more shells, they actually found that it was the exact opposite. The one's in the unstable regions were the ones that survived the best and had the most protein within them. In light of this current finding, this allows them to be much more targeted in their study when looking at fossils and what exactly to look for. I'm excited to see what other information on evolution will come from these findings!
Journal: University of York. "Ancient eggshell protein breaks through DNA time barrier." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 September 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160927082904.htm>.
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Is it just egg shells that effectively protect proteins, or is it something else entirely that was never seem a a major factor?
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wish I had gone into paleontology. I'm fascinated by the things they are still discovering today. I wonder how much more we still have to learn and how much of what we think we know will change from new discoveries such as this.
ReplyDeleteWas it just ostrich eggs they were looking at or was it different kinds of eggs? Were they able to find any other DNA this old or was it specifically from the eggs only? This could change a lot of things about when species first began roaming Earth and I'm sure there is still a ton to find out!
ReplyDeleteGee I bet that was some smelly research! I love that this is a combination of genetics, molecular biology, evolution, and fossil research. Just goes to show the glue molecular techniques provide for all sciences!
ReplyDeleteEarth's history is really quite amazing. It's even more incredible when you realize that animals only take up a small fraction of Earth's history. I'm going to use an example used by Bill Nye. Imagine a line drawn from San Diego to Boston. Somewhere around Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (2000 kilometers from San Diego) the first microbes appear. Two kilometers from the shores of the Atlantic in Boston marks the place where the first humans arrived. There's so much to learn about Earth's history, and it get's even more exciting with every discovery.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't make much sense to me: "researchers have discovered proteins in ancient eggshells that has the information to discover DNA almost 50 times older than what they thought had been known"...could you elaborate?
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