Quirks and Quarks
Fossilized squirrel poop full of ancient animals, and more…
June 12 · 54 min · 53.0 MB
0:00-54:08
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Gold miners working in the Yukon regularly find ancient ground squirrel burrows throughout the permafrost, many containing fossilized feces. Researchers analyzing these well-preserved poop piles found they contain some of the oldest DNA ever recovered, dating from 30,000 to 700,000 years ago. Tucked inside were traces of a wide range of ancient animals, including woolly mammoths, grasshoppers, steppe bison, ancient horses, American cheetahs, as well as hundreds of plant species.
PLUS:
- ‘Super-good, ice-making microbes’ may trigger snow and rain, or help freeze food
- We’re a hotbed of mutations, and scientists are leveraging that for our health
- Going out on a limb. Animals regrow body parts, maybe we can too
- From the archives: Isaac Asimov on human creativity and robots
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