🚀 go-pugleaf

Doug Weller (dweller@ramtops.demon.co.uk) wrote on Thu, 4 Mar 1999 20:18:01 -0000:
: In article <7bmi74$6au$2@whisper.globalserve.net>, on 4 Mar 1999 18:08:36 GMT, 
: yuku@globalserve.net said...
: > Superdave the Wonderchemist (thweatt@prairie.NoDak.edu) wrote on 3 Mar 1999 18:45:42 GMT:

: > : The problem with DNA testing on such old specimens is that DNA decomposes
: > : over time.  In fact, DNA in your cells is constantly getting damaged and
: > : decomposing.  There are enzymes in your cells that constantly travel up
: > : and down strands of DNA looking for damage.  If the damage is repairable,
: > : other enzymes come along and fix it.  If not, the cell commits suicide.
: > : In rare cases the cell becomes a cancer cell.  Most cancer cells ae
: > : destroyed by your immune system before they cause any problems, though.
: > : Without these inspectors and mechanics running around repairing DNA, it
: > : eventually fragments and decomposes.  Ten thousand year-dead mammoths,
: > : even frozen in permafrost, have little left of their DNA longer than ten
: > : thousand base pairs.  A ten thousand year-old human skull which was not
: > : frozen, should not yield anything very useful in any DNA test.
: > 
: > So are you saying that since the tests will be difficult to do, therefore
: > we shouldn't even try?

: Not in the article I'm replying to, perhaps you have a different version that 
: magically changes when you reply to it.  I don't see anything that suggests it 
: would be difficult, a lot that says it would be meaningless.

You're too clued out, Doug, sorry... Obviously the scientists who were
doing these tests, before they were stopped by the US govt, didn't think
they were just wasting their time?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -O- http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku -O- Toronto

You never need think you can turn over any old falsehoods without a
terrible squirming of the horrid little population that dwells under 
it -=O=- Oliver Wendell Holmes