The iMDA protocol combined with ultra-clean reagents and consumables has broad utility for metagenomics, molecular diagnostics, ancient DNA analysis, pre-implantation embryo screening, whole genome analysis of circulating tumor cells, and forensic applications for both human and microbial targets.
Fossil leaves can show damage from the maraudings of ancient insects; analysis of leaf damage can thus illuminate the broader dynamics of ecosystems.
"It is clear that this project has demonstrated what a powerful tool ancient DNA analysis can provide in answering questions which have long perplexed academics regarding the origins of the Irish," said Eileen Murphy, who lectures in osteoarchaeology at Queen's in Belfast.
Potter says ancient DNA analysis is already under way, with cooperation from the tribes living in the Upward Sun River area today.
Allaby's team took four core samples of sediments from a section of the site littered with burnt hazelnut shells apparently left by the hunter-gatherers and subjected the samples to both radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA analysis.
For the ancient DNA analysis, the team used methods pioneered by paleogeneticist Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen to recover and sequence genetic material left behind in sediments even after the plants that originally contained it have disintegrated.
Larson and Dobney wanted to take a lesson from their pig work analyzing as many samples as possible from as many places as possible and combining ancient DNA analysis with geometric morphometrics.
After reexamining the bones, Thornton collaborated with archaeologist Camilla Speller, an expert in ancient DNA analysis at the University of Calgary in Canada, to confirm that the bones belonged to M. gallopavo.
In addition to modern DNA analyses, ancient DNA analysis has informed the "Neandertal problem" providing preliminary evidence in support of the replacement hypothesis, at least in Europe, whereby modern humans arriving there equipped with Upper Paleolithic technology drove the indigenous Neandertals to extinction.
"But since then, we have applied a battery of scientific methods, of which the ancient DNA analysis is the latest," he said.
