Scientists Extract the Oldest RNA Ever Found from 40,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth

“Many researchers thought RNA didn’t stay intact for tens of thousands of years, but the new study challenges that long-held notion.”

Stockholm University researchers sequenced RNA from a woolly mammoth named Yuka that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for nearly 40,000 years, doubling the previous age record for recovered RNA. The messenger RNA contained instructions for proteins involved in muscle contraction and stress regulation, consistent with evidence that Yuka was attacked by cave lions before dying. The discovery proves RNA can persist far longer than scientists believed.