I predicted earlier that Hobbit DNA would be extracted in 2011. It was pretty much an educated guess based on various omissions I sensed in papers in 2010. But it seems that an attempt is going to be made:
Scientists are planning an attempt to extract DNA from the ‘hobbit’ Homo floresiensis, the 1-metre-tall extinct distant relative of modern humans that was unearthed in Indonesia, following a study that suggests problems in standard sampling methods in ancient-DNA research could have thwarted previous efforts.
This year, geneticists at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide hope to recover DNA from a roughly 18,000-year-old H. floresiensis tooth, which was excavated in 2009 from the Liang Bua site on the Indonesian island of Flores.
No guarantees, but still exciting.
(via Dienekes)
Razib Khan’s degrees are in biochemistry and biology. He has blogged about genetics since 2002, previously worked in software development, is an Unz Foundation Junior Fellow and lives in the western US. He loves habaneros.
January 5th, 2011 at 10:45 am
[...] to drill for hobbit history : Nature News *Hobbit DNA in 2011 Esta entrada fue publicada en Genética. Guarda el enlace permanente. ← La [...]
January 5th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
[...] premolar will be drilled, and DNA extracted, according to a Nature News piece passed on by Razib, John Hawks, and Dienekes. This is not the first attempt at extracting hobbit DNA, the news [...]
January 6th, 2011 at 8:34 am
Dienekes says in the thread you link to “Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Hobbits are all interesting, but DNA extrction from iconic early sapiens is something I am much more interested in.”
That is his opinion which I am not going to comment on but it leads to a question. How soon can this new DNA extraction technique gear up and “make these old bones speak.” I know I am speaking from my own biased excitement and impatience but how far away are we from a a massive scientific undertaking to obtain DNA from every human bone that is pre agricultural revolution that has preserved it.