Saturday, October 14, 2023

Creation Moment 10/15/2023 - Under 10.000 Years

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 
1 Corinthians 5:27

"How long can ancient DNA survive, and how much stuff do we need to escape poverty? (Science, 5 Oct 2023). This is a podcast by Science Magazine with Sarah Crespi, Erik Stokstad, and Katherine Irving that explores the lifetime of ancient DNA. In the podcast at 19:15, Irving talks with Love Dalén about forces that degrade DNA over time:

Well, we know that DNA degrades over time, even long after the
death of an organism when it’s kind of in a dry bone or similar. And the main process that degrades DNA is hydrolysis. So basically, the DNA reacts with the water. And even in dry state, there’s always a little bit of water in all samples. And so this kind of leads to a continuous degradation so that DNA follows kind of a half-life process where the fragment sizes become increasingly smaller and smaller.

Low temperature and darkness can extend the half-life, Dalén says, but he does not put an upper limit on the lifetime of DNA. Most samples date under 10,000 years."
CEH