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Dinosaurs resurrected using preserved DNA still only exist in Jurassic Park, but we're making great strides in sequencing the genomes of more recent, but still ancient, creatures. If the rate of discovery is anything to go by, an important milestone is due next year: the first 1-million-year-old genome.
The oldest animal genome sequenced so far is 700,000 years old. It came from the fossil of a horse found in north-west Canada and was published in June this year. That was a huge advance on the 110,000-year-old polar bear genome published in 2012.
So what will grab the million-year-old crown? The big prize would be a distant human ancestor, such as Homo erectus, which emerged about 2 million years ago. Until recently, getting a million-year-old hominin genome looked tricky: DNA is preserved best in chilly climates, and people mainly lived in the tropics. All that changed this month, with the publication of a 400,000-year-old mitochondrial genome sequenced from the remains of an early human found in a cave in Spain. DNA can be preserved in hot climates if the conditions are right, says geneticist David Reich of Harvard Medical School.
Hominins aren't the only contenders, though. Scientists are sequencing a range of genomes, for example, to reconstruct the evolution of Yersinia pestis, the microbe that causes bubonic plague. Genomes could also show up which species lived in lost ecosystems and how climate affected them. So ancient mammoths, penguins and microbes are all challengers.
After 1 million is reached, what's next? It seems that DNA fragments could survive well over a million years at sub-zero temperatures, but sadly for Jurassic Park fans, 65 million years is too tall an order.
This article appeared in print under the headline "First Million-year-old genome"
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