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There's a ton of historical and anthropological reasons to keep the physical copies of artifacts like this. I dream of a day when genetic sequencing is so affo
by Teever 3y ago
There's a ton of historical and anthropological reasons to keep the physical copies of artifacts like this.
I dream of a day when genetic sequencing is so affordable and trivial, that we can analyze records like this for DNA from people and other organisms that came to be deposited on these pieces of paper.
Imagine the possibilities of sequencing the geneomes of all the people who left genetic material on these wills and what that could tell us about society and people who lived in it.
- crazygringo 3y agoIs that scientifically plausible? I'm ignorant here -- does simple handling of paper leave a genome's worth of DNA? Is it probable that even a single skin cell was deposited, for example, and that its DNA would remain intact enough? My impression was that in handling papers, we leave skin oils behind but generally not any cells. I'm happy to be wrong about this, though.
- Teever 3y agoThink of how many people lick their digits before thumbing paper, or have small cuts that leave blood on paper when they touch it, or who sneeze on paper. There's DNA on everything, and the ancient DNA on papers stored in an archive will one day be very valuable.