The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(21)

Whereas blood and skin cells contain nuDNA along with mtDNA, hair, the part that grows above the shaft, is made of dead cells not thought to contain any nuclear DNA.

“Hey, something Theo Cray doesn’t know,” Julian says in a mocking tone. “They thought you couldn’t find any nuDNA because of the keratinization process. As the hair cells died and hardened, it was believed to be destroyed. Since we’re finding genetic material in fossils long after the DNA half-life should have destroyed it all, it’s not unreasonable to have suspected that there might be some viable DNA in hair.

“The real challenge was scrubbing the rest of the stuff away. Some Chinese researchers figured out a couple of years ago how to use laundry powder to do that. As it turns out, we’ve been designing custom enzymes for cleaning microchip wafers. We found an even more efficient formula for finding DNA.”

“That’s great. So how’s your dinosaur park coming?”

“Insurance is going to be a bitch. Anyhow, I figured it might be interesting to compare the bear that got Juniper with others involved in attacks. Who knows, maybe they’re susceptible to some kind of mad-bear disease.”

Julian wants a rational explanation, like me. “I don’t know if we’ll be any better at predicting criminal behavior in bears than we are in people.”

He makes an awkward cough. “Sometime when I know I’m not being recorded, we’ll have an off-the-record, politically incorrect conversation about that. Francis Galton was on to something.”

“Galton was a racist,” I reply.

“I don’t mean that part. Anyway, I’ll send you over the DNA file. I haven’t had a chance to upload it to GenBank and find out what subspecies it is. I’m sure Fish and Wildlife already knows all that, including what it had for breakfast. What I know about bears I learned from watching the Muppets.”

Julian knows this is perfect busywork for me. It’s a way for me to deal with the situation on my own terms. I thank him, then hang up.

The e-mail with the zipped file follows shortly after. DNA in software form is just a text file with a list of location numbers, followed by sequences like acaagatgcc attgtccccc ggcctcctgc tgctgctgct ctccggggcc acggccaccg.

Remarkably, you can take this information—which describes the order of the bonds of guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine to a sugar and phosphate group—and plug it in to a machine that will recreate the DNA by dripping nucleobases one by one into a solution.

Researchers have e-mailed text files across the Internet, uploaded them to DNA replicators, and then dropped the DNA copy into “blank” cells, which have then started up and become identical versions of the original organism.

It still blows my mind that you can e-mail life like you can cat pictures. Any day now we’ll read about some researchers actually e-mailing the cat across the Internet.

The text file is pretty useless by itself unless you’re familiar with specific sequences and their locations. To make sense of it, you load it into a program called a viewer, where you can more easily understand what you’re looking for.

The search for the genetic origins of disease involves looking at specific regions and trying to identify differences. We thought we’d have cancer and other illnesses licked once we could sequence the whole genome. The trouble was that even assuming the condition was related to just a handful of genes, looking at a sequence couldn’t tell you if it was turned on or off in the body. But we’re making strides.

GenBank is the largest public repository of genetic information. It’s filled with DNA samples from just about every animal on the planet that’s managed to find its way near a DNA collection kit.

The original database fit into a few hardback books. They didn’t contain whole genes, just known base pairs. The most recent version has 165 billion base pairs that would fill seven million books.

Fortunately, it’s available in an online database.

I upload the file Julian sent me. A moment later it spits back the results: Ursus arctos.

A brown bear. In North America we call them grizzlies. Just like the one I saw back at the snowplow shed.

Beyond telling me it belongs to a population in the Wyoming and Yellowstone area, GenBank doesn’t have any additional information.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. So I do a search for any groups that have more specific DNA information on local bear populations and find a research group working out of Montana State called Ursa Major.

On a lark, I dial the number on the website.

A woman answers. “This is Dr. Kendall.”

Okay, words . . . “Hello. Um, this is Dr. Theo Cray.”

“What can I do for you Dr. Cray?” She’s polite but to the point.

I’m sure her group is all over Juniper’s bear attack. I’m too embarrassed to tell her exactly why I’m calling. To be honest, I’m not sure even I know why.

“Dr. Kendall, I’ve been doing some research in the area on different fauna and I was wondering if you have a database of bears you’ve tagged or tracked?” I’m not sure how to flat-out ask her for access.

“Yeah. Send me your e-mail and I’ll give you a log-in. What university are you with?”

“Texas. But right now I’m working on a Brilliant grant.”

“Ooh, a brilliant man,” she teases.

“I’ve begged them to change the name.”