Press release blog

Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating
New DNA evidence, found by Oregon State University Researchers, from 44,000 year old penguins challenged the accuracy of the way genetic aging was determined. The new information suggests that scientist have been "routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent." This means that "100,000 years old may actually be 200,000 to 600,000 years old." Professional journal, Trends in Genetics stated. “We believe that traditional DNA dating techniques are fundamentally flawed, and that the rates of evolution are in fact much faster than conventional technologies have led us to believe.”

In order to find this new information scientist used a range of mitochondrial DNA found in the bones, "ranging from 250 years to about 44,000 years old." They used this information to compare it to other bones. This new evidence was made possible by the fact that, "In a temperate zone when an animal dies and falls to the ground, their DNA might degrade within a year,” scientist, Dee Denver said. “In Antarctica the same remains are well-preserved for tens of thousands of years. In the study the DNA was compared to the known ages of bones and their results were found to be a lot different than original knowledge. Another huge discovery for this study was that, "researchers also determined that different types of DNA sequences changed at different rates.

To follow up with more information regarding this story, you can contact the Dean of the College of Science department for Oregon State University, Allan Wilson Center for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, or Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Molecular BioSciences, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand.