The effects of the melting polar ice caps may one day be felt well beyond the poles, though. As the polar ice caps shrink, sea levels begin to rise, creating serious problems for coastal areas around the globe. Fortunately, we can do our part to slow down and prevent the environmental changes causing the polar ice caps to melt.
Paabo and colleagues used a new method for sequencing ancient, degraded genetic material to put together the 400,000-year-old specimen's mitochondrial genome. It is the oldest DNA ever found outside permafrost conditions -- in other words, it was not permanently frozen.
Genome sequencing in November 2013 on the arm bone of a three-year-old Siberian boy known as the Mal'ta Boy â the world's oldest known genome â showed that Native Americans share up to 35 percent of their DNA with people in Eurasia, the Middle East and Europe.