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.
DNA could not last half a million years, but paleontologists describe DNA in samples designated millions of years old. Ditching the millions-of-years dogma would resolve this dilemma. The clearly detected dinosaur proteins and what looks like dinosaur DNA make sense if the earth layers that contain them were deposited by Noahâs Flood only thousands of years ago.