Kyle Harper

So the DNA molecule starts degrading.

The second you die, it just starts falling apart.

And

Even in the best of cases where we're getting it from, usually you're getting it from, if it's pathogen, usually getting it from the dental cavity.

It's human DNA, you're getting it from the inside of the skull.

But it takes a lot of luck for it to preserve because the soil conditions will affect the degradation.

The temperature will affect the degradation.

And just in a crude sense, heat is bad.

And so that's why there's more DNA, ancient DNA that's preserved at more northern latitudes so far.

But it has as much to do with the fact that people aren't looking.

But –

We should be looking.

And if you've got skeletal materials from an ancient mass grave in India, call me.

We can definitely look.

Well, let me start with the plague where I'm a little more comfortable and I can say something as a knowledgeable person.

But I think it's relevant.

Because you said it's weird that plague seems to sort of evade some of these evolutionary constraints.

And it's worth just saying what these are.

a pathogen, you know, is a disease-causing organism, a microbe, usually a virus or a bacterium, but also fungi and single-celled organisms like protozoans that cause disease in a host.

But, like, they're not trying to cause you disease.