Michael Crichton’s classic 1990 novel Jurassic Park spawned a blockbuster movie franchise of death-defying dinosaur action adventures that continue with this year’s latest release: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. A casual audience of these films could certainly be forgiven for thinking that the science of Ancient DNA is all about reckless scientists resurrecting extinct dinosaurs from ancient mosquitoes trapped in amber. However, while we don’t actually have dinosaurs roaming the earth (spoiler alert: and probably never will!), the science of Ancient DNA continues to develop and evolve all the time, with new tools, techniques, and challenges. 

Dr Laura Weyrich

Dr Elizabeth Jones

For this very first double episode of our brand new podcast, BioViews, we are joined by two very special guests to tell us more about the field of Ancient DNA research.

Dr Elizabeth Jones is a historian of science at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. She has spent the past few years at University College London interviewing scientists and studying the history of ancient DNA research. She has recently written a paper entitled Ancient DNA: a history of the science before Jurassic Park. On the show, she talks to us about how ancient DNA research began, and about the interplay between the media, entertainment, and science in the early days of the field.

Dr Laura Weyrich is a paleomicrobiologist at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide. She talks about what Ancient DNA research looks like in practice today, and about her own work reconstructing the microbiomes of ancient humans, using DNA techniques that give us a unique window into the lives of our ancient ancestors.

Follow this link to learn more about ancient DNA and what goes on at ACAD. You can also follow Dr Elizabeth Jones @edobsonjones and Dr Laura Weyrich @lsweyrich on Twitter.

Tune in to the next episode of the BioViews podcast, where we will be hearing all about octopus intelligence and the challenges of consciousness research. In the meantime, follow us at BioViews on Twitter @BioViewsHPS!