The world’s oldest DNA ever reveals a surprisingly lively Arctic

In a breakthrough study, scientists successfully sequenced 2 million-year-old DNA uncovered in Northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, the study found that the Arctic’s polar desert was once a thriving ecosystem that hosted an array of species from trees and herbs to mastodons and sea creatures.

The extraction of the DNA, which was found frozen in Ice Age sediment, challenges scientists’ previous beliefs that DNA cannot survive for longer than a million years. The research team was led by Professor Eske Willerslev (University of Cambridge) and Professor Kurt H. Kjær (University of Copenhagen).