We always try to share the news with you all as soon as we get it; both the good stuff and the bad stuff. Well, this news isn't bad as such, but it is certainly a tad disappointing.During the Sumatra expedition last autumn, the boys brought back samples of rattan that had apparently been chewed by the orang pendek, as well as hair that we hoped would turn out to be from the animal. The samples were divided in two, and half sent to Lars Thomas in Copenhagen, and the rest to Dr Todd Disotell in the United States.
Sadly, we can now confirm that the Transatlantic samples did not yield any DNA. We already knew that the rattan had not yielded any, but we had high hopes for the hair. We are still waiting on news from Denmark.
Did the NY labs result show no DNA at all? This would be surprising as DNA is everywhere especially human DNA. The lab operates from a very sceptical position and consequently are least likely to find anything new in this speciality where objectivity and maybe courage is essential.
ReplyDeletePossibly X_womens mtDNA may now be available at GenTek for comparison. This could be very interesting!
See: htp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18699-meet-xwoman-a-possible-new-species-of-human.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn18699
Norman