The large story
How environmental DNA is giving scientists a brand new technique to perceive our world
February 2024
Environmental DNA is a comparatively cheap, widespread, doubtlessly automated technique to observe the variety and distribution of life.
In contrast to earlier methods, which may establish DNA from, say, a single organism, the tactic additionally collects the swirling cloud of different genetic materials that surrounds it. It may well function a surveillance software, providing researchers a method of detecting the seemingly undetectable.
By sampling eDNA, or mixtures of genetic materials in water, soil, ice cores, cotton swabs, or virtually any surroundings conceivable, even skinny air, it’s now doable to seek for a selected organism or assemble a snapshot of all of the organisms in a given place.
It affords an exhilarating — and doubtlessly chilling — technique to acquire details about organisms, together with people, as they go about their on a regular basis enterprise. Learn the complete story.
—Peter Andrey Smith
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