Pure historical past’s golden age, when Charles Darwin and like-minded scientists contemplated connections between creatures and their environments, largely revolved round accumulating stuff. Explorers fanned out internationally and picked up as many vegetation and animals as they may, drying them or stuffing them or storing them in alcohol in small glass jars. They carried them residence to grand museums the place the general public would possibly get a peek at them and be amazed.
These venerable collections can seem to be relics at present—musty storehouses, shrines to imperial plunder. However with billions of samples catalogued amongst them, museum collections are a treasure for contemporary evolutionary biologists finding out DNA, RNA, proteins and different biomolecules. Sampling decades- and even centuries-old tissues permits scientists to seize snippets of genetic code from vegetation and animals—together with extinct ones—and monitor molecular modifications that occurred lengthy earlier than biologists even understood what DNA was. Youthful specimens are beneficial too, offering a big sampling to assist scientists evaluate traits inside a species or between associated ones.
All of this makes working with museum samples a tantalizing prospect for researchers, says Harvard evolutionary geneticist Daren Card, who has sequenced specimens from Australian museums for his personal work on limb growth in reptiles. Museum genomics is delivering essential insights into evolutionary historical past, the consequences of local weather change and extra, Card and colleagues write within the 2021 Annual Overview of Genetics. Knowable spoke with Card about a few of these initiatives—and a few challenges the sector faces.
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