This applies as much (or more so) to human ancestors
as it does to dinosaurs.
Indirect DNA sequencing...
Öö Tiib wrote:
DNA is typically 2 meters nucleotide chain folded into ∼10 μm
ball of yarn. If that polymer fell apart then how you figure in
what order the pieces were there? Something far shorter and
simpler as illustration to help to think: <https://www.sciencenews.org/article/art-dna-folding>
Nobody was talking about getting preserved DNA.
We find adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine
(T) in meteorites. It lasts a *Very* long time. It survives
entry into our atmosphere. Now assuming that microscopic
unicorns didn't enter the fossils and move everything
around, this adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and
thymine (T) can be presumed to have pretty much
collapsed along the lines it had existed in before death.
...in much the same way that an articulated dinosaur
skeleton has.
So the trick would be to NOT find DNA but its constituent
parts, then work out from their relationship to each other
what they may have looked like before they fell apart.
Nobody said it would be fast, easy or cheap.
Instead of FINDING dinosaur DNA we infer it...
I hope this clarifies.
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