Oldest DNA Ever Recovered Shows Warmer Planet: Report (hundreds of thousands of years ago)

Brietbart.com ^ | Jul 5 03:14 PM US/Eastern | AFP

[Fred Nerks]

The 3,260-metre (10,595-feet) core was drilled into the East Antarctica icesheet at the Franco-Italian base, Dome C. The drillers, gathered in a venture called the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) stopped just 15 metres (48.75 feet) short of the bedrock.

after drilling for 10,595 feet, they stopped just 46.75 feet short of the bedrock? What were they afraid to find...a piece of wood that could be carbon dated...?

[SunkenCiv]

Ancient Greenland was actually green!
MSNBC | 7-05-07 | By Ker Than
Posted on 07/05/2007 5:54:18 PM EDT by Ancient Drive
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1861403/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, only going to ping the oldest one though. :')

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[Constantine XIII]

I thought the oldest DNA ever recovered came from that T-Rex bone.

[ME-262]

“I thought the oldest DNA ever recovered came from that T-Rex bone.”

No I believe an older sample has been obtained from one of Senator Robert Byrd’s teeth.

[Constantine XIII]

XD

[fight_truth_decay]

"...scientists have recovered and identified proteins in a bone of a well-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex, a dinosaur that lived and died and was fossilized 68 million years ago.."

.."The earliest previously identified ancient proteins were from mammoths that died about 300,000 years ago. The oldest confirmed samples of DNA — a more direct bearer of information of molecular evolution, but also more degradable — have come from Neanderthals that lived 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. The extraction of DNA would be necessary for studies in dinosaur genetics and for cloning experiments. Source. "

Greenland: recover the oldest plant DNA on record.."estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest".

Misleading subject line, one has to get into the story to see its distinction.

[WOSG]

Global Warming deniers ping.

[Constantine XIII]

Cool! Thanks for the heads up. :)

[plainspeaker]

Noone will ever be able to convince Algore with facts. His universe does not include research, logic, or common sense. Only HE knows his agenda, and he just announced that he will not run for President, this week. As to his offspring, Algore the XXII, well, he is just not ready for prime time. All the loons need to go back to Golden Pond!

[gnewburg]

Being just a bit scientifically curious, my question is: How does this study (apparently still under review) translate to the rate of global average temperature flux? It's already known that Greenland has also been influenced in the past by changes in oceanic heat distribution. And what are the study's implications in today's world of accelerated change and 6+ billion people? Much of the concern with human influence and it's feedback effects (along with any future natural warming) seems to be the potential rate of change, and how it will affect our holocene biosphere.

[SunkenCiv]

DNA reveals a green Greenland
by Louis Buckley
July 5, 2007

Scientists have drilled through two kilometres of ice in southern Greenland and retrieved DNA from the pine forest that once existed there, buzzing with prehistoric insect life. Dated to between 450,000 and 800,000 years old, the DNA is among the oldest ever found... plant fossils dating to 2.4 million years ago have been found in the far northeast of the country. But, surprisingly, the DNA evidence for plant life stops at 450,000 years ago. Researchers say the lack of younger DNA suggests that this portion of the land has been covered by ice ever since -- and that goes against the prevailing view of Greenland's climatic history. During the last interglacial period (130-116 thousand years ago), the climate was 5 °C warmer than it is today, says Eske Willerslev, director of the centre for ancient genetics at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "Sea levels were 5-6 metres higher, and most scientific models have assumed that the melting of the southern Greenland ice cap was responsible. But our data suggest that this was not the case."

[gnewburg]

Previous research had suggested that only about half of the sea level rise during the LIG came from Greenland. The lead researcher in this study seems to acknowledge that Greenland wasn't the only risk in a rapid change scenario. Looks like they also got some reaction from other climatologists. Like Gavin Schmidt noting that most of the ice in Southern Greenland may have disintegrated/melted, but leaving enough to preserve the DNA. Raymond Bradley of the UMASS Climate System Research Center responded that "Whatever occurred in the past almost surely occurred much more slowly. Human activity is pushing warming at a much faster rate than in the past. Change is occurring in decades or centuries, not over millennia."

The rate of change (seemingly insignificant from a regional weather perspective, but perhaps not from a global climate one) is one thing that had me wondering if some have read too much into this study.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Note: this topic is dated 7/05/2007. Blast from the Past. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. Thanks fight_truth_decay. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.