Interviewee: Svante Paabo. Evolutionary geneticist Svante Paabo talks about the environments that will best preserve ancient DNA. (DNAi Location: Applications > Human origins > Comparisons > DNA > Preservation of ancient DNA)

So bone and teeth may actually be a particularly good environment to preserve DNA for two reasons. Firstly it's sort of protected from the outside to some extent from water and microorganisms. And secondly when the cells break up after death, and the DNA sort of comes out, it can bind to the mineral, the hydroxyapatite in the bone, and that protects us also from degradation by insects and from bacteria and so on.

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