Freeze-dried chromosomes can survive for thousands of years

A major advance may be at hand. A new paper in Cell, a scientific journal, describes the discovery of fossil chromosomes—coiled-up strands of DNA millions of base pairs long—inside the cells of mammoths that died tens of thousands of years ago. The research “really opens a door for a new kind of exploration of ancient life”, says Erez Aiden of the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, Texas, who is one of the paper’s lead authors.