Credit: Henning1952 via Creative Commons

An international team of scientists has become the first to map the elusive Greenland shark’s genome, sequencing about 92% of its DNA. Having released their findings as a preprint — a scientific paper that has not yet gone through the peer-review process –  the researchers are inviting more scientists to study the genome and conduct their own analysis, furthering our collective understanding of the shark’s DNA. 

The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is the longest-lived vertebrate known, with an estimated lifespan of around 400 years. The hope is that the new genome map can unlock the secrets behind their impressive lifespan, and perhaps provide mechanisms for lengthening our own life expectancy.

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