Weird Use of DNA #482: Ancient DNA in Painting

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted June 4, 2007 in DNA Fun

Danish artist Ulla Plougmand-Turner has used “ancient DNA” to create a painting of the “Seven Daughters of Eve,” women who Professor Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford says are the maternal ancestors of the majority of Europeans. He created the DNA in his own lab:

I know how it [DNA] can survive thousands of years and what I’ve done is to reverse this process making new DNA, reconstructed, and then put that into the paint.

Artist Plougmand-Turner said the experience of using DNA endowed paint was “amazing.” If she wants to use some of my DNA next time, I might consider it.

The painting is being exhibited at Wolfson College, Oxford until Friday, June 22nd.

NB: See other forms of DNA art.

Tags: genetics, genes, dna, painting, ulla plougmand-turner, bryan sykes, daughters of eve, genomics, genome, ancestry, genealogy

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Comment by Hsien

2007-06-04 16:22:30

Another weird use of DNA:

Authors sweat blood and tears to get their books to print. Some even give of themselves literally by adding their DNA to ink used to print the books. Ko-sin Printing of Japan has published autobiographies with title pages printed with DNA-laced ink. They claim that it’s possible to extract DNA directly from the page for future use…cloning, anyone?

John Brownlee of Wired thinks that it might be possible to extract DNA from books written in blood as well, including the one by the rock band KISS. Yuck!!

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Comment by Painting

2009-01-06 03:16:43

Wow, so this artist literally “Painted with DNA”… Crazy. And ancient DNA for that matter. Next they will be cloning the fathers and mothers of humanity with the same DNA. Pretty cool.

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