Scientists Sequence Oldest RNA from Woolly Mammoth

Scientists have extracted and sequenced the oldest RNA molecules ever recovered, from the frozen remains of a 40,000-year-old woolly mammoth calf discovered in Siberian permafrost. The breakthrough, detailed in a study published Friday in the journal Cell, provides a rare glimpse into the genetic activity of the extinct animal in its final moments of life.

The specimen, nicknamed Yuka, was unearthed in 2010 by Yukaghir hunters on a bluff near the Arctic Ocean in northeastern Siberia. The nearly intact carcass of the dog-sized juvenile, which measured about 10 feet long and weighed around 1,500 pounds, retained reddish-brown fur, pinkish flesh, and muscle tissue preserved by rapid freezing and long-term burial in permafrost. Radiocarbon dating confirmed its age at approximately 39,000 to 40,000 years old. Researchers had long suspected Yuka died young, between 6 and 8 years old, possibly during a chase by cave lions, as evidenced by scratches on its hind legs and signs of trauma.

A team led by Emilio Mármol-Sánchez, a genomicist at the University of Copenhagen, and Love Dalén, an evolutionary biologist at Stockholm University, analyzed tissue samples from Yuka and nine other...