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Shark attacks had been one of the animal attack cases commonly encountered by US citizens. Some victims died while others survived. It's such a miracle to survive with a complete pair of feet and hands. Before, it was impossible to know what type of shark had attacked the victim, but with the continued development of the technology, the attacker can be determined, which was made possible by a shark attack case In 1994.
In 1994, on Flagler Beach in Palm Coast, Florida, a 21-year-old surfer, Jeff Weakley, was attacked by a shark and fortunately survived with lacerations. For 24 years after the event, Jeff had been fascinated by the idea of the type of shark that had attacked him until he had read an article that finally gave him the answers that he needed. He was looking for.
The research team led by Gavin Naylor, Ph.D., also director of the Florida Sharks Research Shark Research Program (FPSR), identified the shark species that bit a child off the coast of the fire. Island in 2018. Jeff searched and followed the team to help identify his attacker by the tooth fragment that he had pinched his foot. "I'm curious to see if they could use the same DNA process on my sample," said Weakley in Inverse.
"We all thought that because the tooth was in Jeff's body since So long "There was almost no chance of recovering the shark's DNA," Naylor said. However, we also thought that it would be fun to try! "
In their test, the main author of the new study and laboratory leader at FPSR, Lei Yang, Ph.D., felt that the project would be difficult and could take a long time, as it is possible that the project would be difficult. DNA is not fully extracted as it may already be degraded by Jeff's immune system. Unexpectedly, the opposite has occurred. After cleaning the tooth fragment and scraping its pulp, the experiment had been successfully delivered.
According to Naylor, their team uses the technique of estimating evolutionary relationships between different shark species, which includes understanding the population structure and historical demography, in the same way that some companies like 23 & Me do for humans. This technique had already been tested on centenarian specimens of archival river sharks; However, the test was done with the help of fragments kept in the museum.
The results showed that the attack was committed by Carcharhinus limbatus or commonly called black-tip shark. At first, the team was not sure of the results. In fact, she thought the sample was contaminated. However, the DNA he sequenced corresponds to the same DNA from degraded tissue and gives no evidence of contamination. In addition, their results corresponded well to the DNA of the abundant species of Flagler County, according to Inverse.
The suspicion of Weakley for 24 years has been confirmed. "I had suspected for a long time that it was a black tip shark bite, and it was satisfying to learn the truth," he said.
"How do I feel?" I continue to marvel at the achievements of modern science, "Weakley said. "I'm happy to think that I may have made a contribution."
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