Hunt for the Oldest DNA | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS
Follow the quest to recover DNA millions of years old for the very first time.
Official Website: https://to.pbs.org/483Fzs7 | #novapbs
For decades, scientists have tried to unlock the secrets of ancient DNA. But life’s genetic blueprint is incredibly fragile, and researchers have struggled to find DNA in fossils that could survive millions of years. Then, one maverick scientist had the controversial idea to look for DNA not in fossils or frozen ancient tissue – but in dirt. Join the hunt as scientists decipher the oldest DNA ever found, and reveal for the first time the genes of long-extinct creatures that once thrived in a warm, lush Arctic.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
06:08 Challenges of Recovering Ancient DNA from Soil
22:36 Searching for Ancient Animal and Plant DNA in Greenland
37:59 Accurately Dating the Ancient DNA
43:03 How Did DNA Survive So Long?
45:23 What Was Earth Like Before the Ice Age?
48:15 Lessons Learned from the Pliocene
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When was the ice age, oldest dna, ancient dna, extinct animals, paleontology, pliocene, eske willerslev, dna sequencing
@dianekelly3452
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Fascinating that dirt holds secrets of the ancient existence of so many species. More importantly, is the fact that we as a species do recognize what our own hidden talents & skills are at an early age. In the future, AI may be able to simulate conditions and scenarios for us to gain exposure to what inspires us and stimulates our curiosity.
@Brenda-uk9hr
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
can you get dna if its petrified
@Oregon_Sunnie
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Amazing discovery. It was a brilliant, and logical, idea to search the soil!
@WarshMeh
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Thats her opinion but she is wrong because AGI will change that.
@hhenrynice6843
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Camels evolved in the artic. In the the
Pliocine erea. The pliocine was a hotter world, higher CO2, and we now have one million year old DNA, and not we can splice genes to help us grow crops after global warming. Not that we want global warming, but you now man is too greedy to stop using fossil fuel like oil and coal, and its our greed that has caused g.obal warming. So who knows maybe splicing in some of those ancient genes into human babies will he.p our species t o get through the mass extinction event that is coming. It sounds nice if humans can stop global warming, but our greed by some humans is dooming us all. However, there is hope that if we can slow it down it will g ive us more time to try to engineer our way out of it. And if we do survive global warming and do not manage to have global thermal nucular war then maybe to this engineering to get past the global warming transition can help some of us to survive the deel freeze of thermal nucular war. Genetic engineering is also a threat. What if a smart rogue nation like noth !orea engineers their babies and the creats a world environmental condition that on.y their babies can survive — they then tox up the world environment, maybe with a manufactured virus that only targets humans, so all people around the world die except them because for the previous 5 years they genetically modified every baby in their country. That is one way to make the North Korean State worship the wor.ds only nation worthy of god — they can make zNorth Korea gods chosen people, or maybe its Iran that beats N.K. to it. Maybe the US becomes the evil contry that genetical.y modefies its population to kill every other contry off in the world so that we can have it all. Maybe all the countries around the world get into this race to genetica.ly kill each other off and iach country has a different gene target. And to save our own countries we monitor the other countries and insert their kill protection gene . And of course countries try to fool each other to get us to splice i a gene that we think is going to protect usbut instead it kil.s that generation of babies — oh No, oops. And in this race to insert genes we accidently create a completely new species? So when we thing gene sp.icing is going to save us it actually kills us. And that is the real reasons why we try to outlaw genetic manipulation as a treatment for some diseases?
@jonnylaplata4280
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Save the world Dude?Nobody knows what is going on. God bless you. But. You know. K 2 million years? Im 96 years old and this is insane.
Great channel
@KeithKyle-m3b
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Think about going even further and searching for meteorite DNA and living organisms in space?
@sarahs5340
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I don’t want to go back to a hotter world! Omg, not at all. Bad news.
@katydidiy
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Start watching Nova, Nature, all your favorite PBS gems, subscribe, like comment and share. That will make the presence possible at least here. And if you can, please support your local PBS stations any way you can. I'll be supporting Wisconsin Public Radio.
@jessyteves6773
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
That is reassuring…Jurrasic Prk will never happen. We don’t want that!!!😂😅
@ellentau427
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
This was so inspirational especially his dedication to rescue the future by harnessing the past DNA. IT GAVE SO MUCH MEANING TO "LIFE" ! Incredible motivation tenacity and perseverance to reach outstanding results for the challenges that climate change will bring.Thank you and your team .
@HBBK1
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I love this! Dirt DNA!
@cherylsterrenburg2186
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
This was a year ago – makes me wonder what other advances have been made (aka – has even OLDER DNA (viable) been found?
@gishman5000
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Absolutely fantastic documentary. It's truly amazing to think about the northern arctic as a warm forest 2.5 million years ago, when all we can see now is a barren and empty arctic desert. Truly incredible!!
@dummyemail8179
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I hope Rump rots for pulling PBS funding
@LeeferReefer
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
this should have been a 4 year series with 10 episodes a season at 2 hours long an episode.. other than that great show
@LiberatedAmon
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Of course the DNA is from before the last ice age, if you recovered it from under ice of the last ice age. What else would it be?
@LiberatedAmon
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I had a totally different idea about what this title meant. They are looking for the oldest still readable fossil DNA. I thought they were trying to determine what the first code of DNA could have been.
@lowellfast490
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Cut back on the Orchestra!
@watanglipuhadjar2654
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
It's like a message to scientists to dig into their environment and uncover the mysteries of evolution over time, not through fossils, but through the traces of DNA left behind. hmm.. It looks like Jurassic Park will be a very long sequel.
@jaymcgann6637
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
The more we learn about DNA the more it can be manipulated. In 100 years we will be able to manufacture dinosaurs out of whole cloth, and humans.
@coffeesquirrel1
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Feel bad for all the students who got effected by this – makes me feel a certain kinda way – like yes press on but also really not fair that they were basically cannon fodder – as interesting as the topic was I don't know that I would have wanted him for my Professor
@lauracasillas
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I love love love this video!!
@benice6
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I will forever look at a dog taking a poop differently now 👍🤔
@BlizzardLegends
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Cannabis DNA? 🧬
Run some tests for me please.
@chadancat6347
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Thank science for lying ,,discredit God for the truth
@garygroesch4195
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Hey Niobe- Can you make us a copy with a movie star to narrate? Or two? Cast it- get Annette Benning, or some actor that reads: smart, and a singer, like that Mother T-Love, the gospel lady, who belts it out – not brilliant, but as she learns how to pronounce things, (we are never too old to read and write!!) Victories great and small. So to speak.
@secretagent5954
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
that one guys voice just isnt real
@montejarvis
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
what could go wrong?
@B29Kad
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Earth must have been a paradise before humans got here
@Floydtvz
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
The only problem is scientific carbon dating is speculation at best.😅
@katiew.8188
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
PBS has some of the absolute best tv…. Nova, Nature, American Experience, and Frontline. No wonder MAGA wants to do away with it. They hate an educated public.
@ModernMoonBean
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Is that Beth Shapiro's voice?
It seems dubbed and so distracting.
I'm not seeing a reason for it.
Interesting subject
@domingoapplevenicea.7151
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
This is amazingly beautiful😭😭😭
@jenniferlyons4150
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
Camel, the original energy storage unit! 😊
@ShureeRogers
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
❤
@williamslivee
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
All these by someone our school system called an academic failure. Mehn I think its time we review our Academic structure for real, to reflect what we now know about humans and diversity.
@papajeff5486
August 17, 2025 at 5:21 am
I wonder will AI help build tools to study old DNA? …from and old vet., retired in theUS foothills of the East Tennessee Smoky Mountains.
Comments are closed.