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Extracting DNA from the air – DNA evidence of human occupancy in indoor premises

(www.nature.com)
248 points punnerud | 1 comments | 15 Mar 25 18:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.215s | source
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steve_adams_86 ◴[18 Mar 25 06:37 UTC] No.43396361[source]▶
At work we do this with DNA floating around in the ocean (have to track down all those nasty invasive crabs) but I wouldn’t have guessed we could do this with the air around us as well. That’s so cool.

Maybe we should spin up an air-based version for the office to keep track of who’s in coming to work the most

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SpicyUme ◴[18 Mar 25 20:26 UTC] No.43404629[source]▶
Do you think this would become doable by private citizens in the near future for a reasonable amount of money? I've been curious about how far upstream the sculpins are in our local streams. I've seen some in pretty small streams but looking for them typically involves standing still in very cold water for long enough to see them move.
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1. a_bonobo ◴[19 Mar 25 01:49 UTC] No.43407514[source]▶
There are some direct-to-consumer companies popping up that do this for you for <$300 per sample. New Zealand has Wilderlab, for example, https://www.wilderlab.co.nz/, the UK has Nature Metrics https://www.naturemetrics.com/

They send you usually a syringe with some filter paper in it, you push water through the filter paper, send the paper back, and they sequence the DNA stuck in the paper and send you a report (and add the sightings to their database).