The problem with studying long-extinct creatures is that their tissue degrades, even if it’s safely stuffed and on display in a museum. However, researchers have now extracted RNA from a century dead Tasmanian tiger and they say it could not only change the way we study found specimens, but also give us a closer look at the biological evolution of viruses.
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00:04 The problem with studying long extinct creatures is that their tissue degrades, even if it's
00:08 safely stuffed and on display in a museum.
00:10 But now researchers with the Center for Paleogenics in Stockholm and Stockholm University have
00:15 extracted RNA from a century dead Tasmanian tiger.
00:19 And they say it could not only change the way we study found specimens, but also give
00:22 us a closer look at the biological evolution of viruses.
00:26 This is Lov Dahlin, professor in evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University to explain.
00:32 We analyzed RNA from the thylacine or the Tasmanian tiger.
00:37 And RNA is a molecule that transmits information from the genome to the rest of the cell.
00:43 And this is the first time that anyone has ever recovered RNA from an extinct species.
00:48 The Tasmanian tiger is believed to have gone extinct in the 1930s.
00:52 And from this sample, they were able to figure out that they had a particular RNA gene specifically
00:57 related to the buildup of skin tissue.
00:59 That's not all that exciting, but they say it's just the beginning and is sort of a proof
01:03 of concept with regards to the process.
01:05 And the researchers believe this same method could be used to look at old pandemic viruses
01:09 and see how they evolve over hundreds of years or more, giving us insight into predicting
01:14 and treating future outbreaks.
01:17 But now we actually do have the possibility to, for example, go back to the influenza
01:21 pandemic of 1918 and look in museum skins if we can find that virus, for example, in
01:27 bird skins, which are thought to be an important vector for influenza viruses.
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