700,000-Year-Old Horse Becomes Oldest Creature With Sequenced Genome 69
sciencehabit writes "Scientists have sequenced the oldest genome to date—and shaken up the horse family tree in the process. Ancient DNA derived from a horse fossil that's between 560,000 and 780,000 years old suggests that all living equids—members of the family that includes horses, donkeys, and zebras—shared a common ancestor that lived at least 4 million years ago, approximately 2 million years earlier than most previous estimates. The discovery offers new insights into equine evolution and raises the prospect of recovering and exploring older DNA than previously thought possible."
Welcome to Pliocene Park (Score:5, Funny)
We may never get a dinosaur theme park, but we've got a decent shot at a carousel full of ancient horses, saber-tooth tigers, and wooly mammoths. What could possibly go wrong?
World's Oldest and First Ass (Score:5, Funny)
I'm glad we now understand the genetic base of the jackass. Maybe with this knowledge medical science can remove those genes from human DNA.
Source material (Score:5, Funny)