a16z Podcast: The Scientific Revolution of Ancient DNA

with Jorge Conde (@jorgecondebio), David Reich, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread)

Trying to reconstruct the deep past of ancient humans out of present-day people has until now been like trying to reconstruct a bomb explosion in a room from bits of shrapnel, says David Reich, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and author of the new book, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. But technological advances and new tools available only in the last few years have suddenly revolutionized this field, opening up an entirely new window into the past as well as our present humanity.

This conversation, with a16z bio general parter Jorge Conde, and Hanne Tidnam, dives into this new scientific revolution of the study of the ancient genome. Beginning with the so-called "black hole" of Mitochondrial Eve to the most revelatory discoveries from new knowledge and scientific tools, this episode of the a16z Podcast delves into the ways archaic humans and ancient DNA tell us not just about our biology, but about ourselves.

image: Ben Casey, Wikimedia Commons