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Suuuper excited about these genomes from mammoth fossils that are more than a million years old. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mammoth-genomes-shatter-record-for-oldest-dna-sequences/
One of the first pieces I wrote for @SciAm was on the recovery of mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000-year-old Neandertal arm bone--landmark research published 1997.
Back then, researchers doubted that they'd ever be able to recover nuclear DNA that old. And the odds of obtaining any DNA sequences more than 100,000 years old seemed very unlikely.
But the methods for extracting genetic material from fossils, separating the good stuff from contaminants, and reconstructing genomes from millions (and billions) of tiny fragments of ancient DNA have come a remarkably long way since the 90s.
Now if someone could just find some million-year-old human remains in permafrost.... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mammoth-genomes-shatter-record-for-oldest-dna-sequences/
