Don't wash those fossils!
Standard museum practice can wash away DNA.
Washing, brushing and varnishing fossils — all standard conservation treatments used by many fossil hunters and museum curators alike — vastly reduces the chances of recovering ancient DNA.
Read the story here.
Comments
Though I return stateside from the Central American field bearing high-pressure temperature metamorphic rocks , I have long had to humor the
Department of Agriculture by truthfully asserting they have been scrubbed and ritually anointed with Betadine ,lest the dreaded Citrus Canker or Hoof and Mouth disease hitchhike back to a Harvard museum basement.
But checking 'yes' on the immigration form asking if I have set foot on agricultural land nevertheless gets my boots a free ,but compulsory, shoeshine and disinfectant-dousing.
So I fear that the paleo guys will get a warm reception when they appear in Miami, or wherever , and try to sell the DOA on the the bring'em back alive DNA protocol.
Posted by: Russell Seitz | January 9, 2007 12:57 AM
This article confirmed suspicions last night while viewing a video on an excavation on the island of Orkney. Personnel were handling human and horse skeletons and picking up ancient silver bridles and bits with bare hands and just discarding the soils and dust surrounding everything. Surely much was lost and much was contaminated by this 'handling'.
I thought that future archeologists will be aghast at seeing such sophomoric treatment of these rare and irretreivable finds.
Posted by: Michael Landers | January 10, 2007 01:01 AM
What is perhaps most potentially intriguing about this idea of not washing fossils is tied to the observation that sometimes DINOSAUR bones when they are recovered have a characteristic smell of associated decay. That this decay could be tied to the presence of DNA after 65 million years and could provide the impetus for a real Jurrasic Park should be obvious!
Posted by: Scott Zema | January 10, 2007 11:46 PM