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Researchers have extracted DNA from a 50,000-year-old tooth belonging to an African antelope, setting a record for the oldest DNA ever retrieved from sub-Saharan Africa, a new study reports.

The finding suggests that DNA preservation in sub-Saharan Africa is possible for tens of thousands of years. In most cases, the region's hot climate breaks down the molecule and prevents researchers from understanding the evolution of numerous species, including ancient human ancestors and relatives .

While some temperate regions are known for preserving ancient human DNA — for instance, the Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of Bones") in Spain preserved DNA from a mysterious relative of modern humans that lived around 400,000 years ago — the sub-Saharan African climate is less forgiving. The oldest human DNA from sub-Saharan Africa is about 18,000 years old and was discovered in bones found in a rock shelter in Tanzania . And the oldest sub-Saharan animal DNA is just 9,300 years old, from an extinct antelope in South Africa.

In the new study, researchers tested whether DNA could be successfully extracted from ancient skeletons even older than that. By analyzing more than 300 teeth from animals that lived in the past 110,000 years, they discovered that small amounts of DNA could be identified even in remains from the Late Pleistocene , the latter part of the last ice age.

Researchers extracted the DNA from the 50,000-year-old tooth of a mountain reedbuck ( Redunca fulvorufula ), a species of antelope that still lives in Africa today. (Image credit: Getty Images) In a study published online May 27 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews , researchers extracted DNA from dozens of Holocene bovid specimens younger than 11,700 years old and from four Late Pleistocene bovid specimens between 12,000 and 50,000 years old. Although many of the teeth didn't yield DNA, a handful did. The oldest DNA the researchers found came from a partial molar from an African antelope called a mountain reedbuck ( Redunca fulvorufula ) discovered in Boomplaas Cave in southern South Africa. The other old DNA samples came from three extinct long-horned buffalos ( Syncerus antiquus ) ‪—‬ two that died 21,000 years ago and one that died 12,000 years ago.

"The 50,000-year-old DNA is exciting," study first author Deon de Jager , a paleogenomics expert at the University of Copenhagen, told Live Science in an email. "But I am myself skeptical of it, for two reasons."

The reedbuck DNA is significantly older than the next-oldest DNA the researchers retrieved, from the long-horned buffalo, de Jager explained, and the reedbuck specimen was contaminated with some human DNA, which they were able to remove. These two issues mean the 50,000-year-old antelope DNA result is not ironclad. However, since the publication of the study, the researchers have also sequenced the genome of a 42,000-year-old wildebeest from Ethiopia, suggesting DNA lasts a lot longer in Africa's climate than experts once thought.

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"There is of course a limit to DNA preservation in Africa, but what it is, is not clear," de Jager said. "There are certainly parts of Africa where DNA will be preserved even better than from the sites we have surveyed. Deep caves with stable, low temperatures will certainly be good candidates, but also high-elevation sites where temperatures have been very low for a long time."

The Late Pleistocene teeth that de Jager and colleagues analyzed produced very low amounts of DNA, which is thought to have a half-life of about 521 years, meaning half of the DNA in a specimen disappears every 521 years until none is left. But the amount the researchers found is still useful, de Jager said.

The DNA is sufficient for identifying evolutionary lineages, de Jager added. If they can gather enough data, researchers might be able to compare gene flow and interbreeding among species and populations.

Although these results suggest that DNA analysis is possible for understanding the past 40,000 to 50,000 years of animal and human evolution in South Africa, we may never be able to extract DNA from ancient human relatives like Homo naledi , which went extinct around 240,000 years ago, or Paranthropus robustus , which died out around 1 million years ago.

"I think the chances of obtaining DNA from Homo naledi are very, very low, unfortunately," de Jager said. "One would have to get very lucky with an incredibly well-preserved skull with the petrous bone still present, which is the best bone for obtaining ancient DNA. To get DNA from something in Africa nearly 1 million years old would probably be impossible, as the conditions in Africa are just too harsh."

How much do you know about Earth's frosty past? Find out with our last ice age quiz!

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Star Wars creator George Lucas is the latest prominent voice to come out in support of AI in the creative arts, comparing its rise to that of the invention of the automobile.

Lucas's full-throated embrace of AI despite its inherent ethical and environmental risks – not to mention Yoda's outspoken skepticism of paths that are quicker, easier, and more seductive – is disheartening, but the Star Wars visionary says there's no point in resisting. It's "the future," in his words.

"Artificial intelligence means it's much easier for us to make movies," he tells A Rabbit's Foot . "It's very much like sitting here saying, 'Well, I believe the horse and the buggy is really where it's at. These cars, they break down, they need gas, there's all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they'll be making them into tanks, and then they'll be killing people. It's terrible.' There's nothing you can do about it."

The car analogy is one of the most common rationalizations for AI complacency in the ongoing debate about the technology's role in various mediums, an inevitability one would be wise to adapt to or risk being left behind. But most analysts still see the worst implications of AI as far from inevitable, which is why in the video game industry many prominent developers refuse to use it at all . Meanwhile, other filmmaking auteurs are outright rejecting AI in movies, like The Odyssey director Christopher Nolan, who just recently praised Gen Z for its "rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology."

Lucas acknowledges that AI has its risks, but argues that it's smart enough to self-correct. "If you want AI that tells you when something is fake and where it came from, AI can do that," he says. "Humans can't, we're not that smart. The whole idea is you're a human being, you're responsible for what you say and what you do, and if you're doing something that's illegal you should be punished for that. Whatever you do, you should be recognised. It's just like real life."

Of course, Lucas is one of the most prolific, enduring, and beloved filmmakers of his generation, known for pushing technological boundaries and revolutionizing the film industry's approach to visual effects. If anyone's allowed a bullish take on an emerging technology, it's him, even if film buffs and creatives alike are grimacing at the implications.

Star Wars creator George Lucas says film studios nowadays care more about "what the fans think" rather than trusting filmmakers

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While the end of physical PlayStation discs has taken up most of the headlines over the past few weeks, that news was also accompanied by the revelation that Sony is finally going ahead with its long-delayed plan to close the PS3 and Vita stores . While that's going to end official access to many PlayStation games, the developers behind the PS3 emulator RPCS3 have just passed a major milestone in the unofficial preservation of the console's library.

"75% of all PlayStation 3 games are now PLAYABLE on PC," the RPCS3 devs exclaim in a post on Twitter . "RPCS3 continues to be improved with new features, fixes, and optimisations, bringing it ever closer to preserving the entire PS3 library."

For the RPCS3 compatibility list , "playable" means that a game can be completed without major glitches or performance issues. 2,681 of the 3,559 games tracked by the RPCS3 devs are now marked as playable, and most of the rest can at least let you get in-game.

There's still a lot of work to do, however. While, yes, the vast majority of the total library is fully playable, a substantial number of the remaining 25% are among the best PS3 games of all time. Those titles include games like The Last of Us, God of War 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, and the whole Uncharted series. There are modern alternatives to play many of those games, of course, but if the mission is "preserving the entire PS3 library," those are some very notable gaps.

But the fact that the big PS3 exclusives are among the last to be made fully compatible on the emulator makes sense, since those are often the games that push the original hardware to its limits. The devs behind RPCS3 have already done incredible work in making sure a notoriously difficult-to-emulate console will have much of its library saved for the future, and I'm certain there'll be plenty more to follow.

Last time PlayStation threatened to close PS3 and Vita digital stores, the players revolted: "As gamers and collectors this is a hard pill to swallow."