DNA is special in telling us about the evolutionary dynamics of organisms. This is critical when studying past as well as current environments, in order to protect species and ecosystems from the potentially devastating consequences of climate change. Jacques and Irene meet Beth Shapiro, the director of the Paleogenomics Laboratory at the University of California in Santa Cruz, to talk about her work on ancient DNA and what it can tell us about ancient animals and their environment. Subscribe to Illumina: http://bit.ly/IlluminaYouTube Links: Beth Shapiro at UCSC Paleogenomics Lab – https://pgl.soe.ucsc.edu/ University of California Santa Cruz http://www.ucsc.edu/ For more info on applications in sequencing – http://www.illumina.com/techniques/sequencing.html For more info on applications in other areas http://www.illumina.com/science/publications/publications-review.html See all our Adventures in Genomics videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKRu7cmBQlah8wHBByBXEO0dNW-xNvvX_ http://www.Illumina.com