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 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Cellulose dating back 253 million years — along with some possible ancient DNA — has been found in salt crystals from an underground nuclear waste dump in southern New Mexico.
"We did see some ancient DNA in the salt, but not a lot, and we have to continue experiments to try to verify that it is ancient DNA," said Jack D. Griffith, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
The cellulose — the same microscopic stuff in wood or cotton — was in water locked in tiny cubes of clear and reddish-brown salt crystals at the federal government's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
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