Legend of Loch Ness Monster Will Be Tested With DNA Samples (apnews.com)

The stories seem as tall as the lake is deep. For hundreds of years, visitors to Scotland's Loch Ness have described seeing a monster that some believe lurks in the depths. But now the legend of "Nessie" may have no place left to hide. From a report: A New Zealand scientist is leading an international team to the lake next month, where they will take samples of the murky waters and conduct DNA tests to determine what species live there. University of Otago professor Neil Gemmell says he's no believer in Nessie, but he wants to take people on an adventure and communicate some science along the way. Besides, he says, his kids think it's one of the coolest things he's ever done. One of the more far-fetched theories is that Nessie is a long-necked plesiosaur that somehow survived the period when dinosaurs became extinct. Another theory is that the monster is actually a sturgeon or giant catfish. Many believe the sightings are hoaxes or can be explained by floating logs or strong winds.

Comments

If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[allaunjsilverfox2]

If nothing else comes from it, at least there will be a snapshot of the current level of biodiversity in the lake. Which could be useful for future planning if there is ever a algae bloom or other problem that arises. They could look back at the test and track where the problem first showed up.

Re:If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[Registered Coward v2]

The legend is more valuable than the truth; because you can sell the legend. It will be good to have a better understanding of the water's biodiversity, but I doubt it will have much impact on the legend. True believers will fin some conspiracy or mistake facts to argue their point, and the tourism council will continue to promote the monster.

Re:If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[Anonymous Coward]

> The legend is more valuable than the truth; because you can sell the legend.

Yeah I don't know about that. I went to Loch Ness as part of a group tour and I was prepared to be inundated with Nessie this and Nessie that.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I wasn't indundated with Nessie stuff. There is a little building that I think is also an inn, with a Nessie monster display, and that's about it. The narration on board a boat tour spent far more time talking about the real history of the region than monster sighting. Really, the whole Loch Ness Monster thing seemed to be an afterthought and not nearly as important as Urquhart Castle.

And outside of that area the only time I saw Nessie-related things was solely in tourist trinket shops.

It really feels like they are not trying hard to capitalise on this legend at all.

Re:If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[shess]

If nothing else comes from it, at least there will be a snapshot of the current level of biodiversity in the lake. Which could be useful for future planning if there is ever a algae bloom or other problem that arises. They could look back at the test and track where the problem first showed up.

How accurate is taking DNA samples from water though? Can you really take a sample of water and determine all the creatures that live there? I'm skeptical on how accurate this is. I certainly don't believe there is an actual Loch Ness Monster, but if there were, and their numbers were very low, how likely would you be to catch their DNA in a sample, in 10, in 100.

Maybe the science for this is better than I suspect (I'm no expert) but this strikes me of fishing for Tuna in a back-yard pond.

The biggest problem is that such a sampling expedition is going to find a lot of unknown DNA and a lot of ambiguous DNA, which is all you need to keep the legend rolling. You can't explain 100% of the DNA you find in a local puddle, much less a substantial body of water like this with relatively low through current.

Re:If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[Roger W Moore]

How accurate is taking DNA samples from water though?

When it comes to finding mythical monsters completely inaccurate. Anyone who really believes that there is a monster in Loch Ness is simply going to explain it away by e.g. claiming the monster is alien and doesn't have DNA. It's hard to argue against firmly held, irrational beliefs with rational, evidence-based arguments unless you can provide clear and direct evidence that explicitly contradicts those beliefs and not finding something is not going to do that.

Re:If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[jwhyche]

We could drain the damn thing. Tag and categorize every fish and weed in the loch, and some fruit would still believe in a monster. Humans have an amazing capacity for self deception.

Re:If nothing else, Biodiversity recordings

[Michael Woodhams]

Fair point. Neil Gemmell is a specialist in mitochondrial DNA. (I'm not, but I've co-authored with him.) So I expect they'll pick out any DNA which look like they are mitochondrial by using highly conserved mitochondrial genes, and then see how that mitochondria compares to known species. If all the mitochondria they find is closely related to known fish, snails, birds etc. then this is evidence against Nessie. If they find something unlike anything known but looks like it had a common ancestor with birds or crocodiles 250 million years ago, this would be evidence for Nessie.

The general method is called metagenomics. You sequence everything, then compare the sequences to genbank, likely using the BLAST program. Any sequences which are very similar to a known sequence from genbank you conclude come from the same or similar organism to the one the genbank sequence came from. If you find a sequence which is quite close but not an exact match to lots of genbank mitochondrial sequences, that is when you might jump up and down and shout "Nessie!". (You might also get lucky with Nessie nuclear DNA.)

This explanation is simplified, partly to keep it short, and partly because I haven't done any metagenomics myself so I only know a simplified version of it.

Homeopathy About to Be Debunked. Pictures at 11!

[moehoward]

Oh, lord. You seriously think that we will finally put the lunatics to bed with a DNA test. And you seriously believe that they even believe in DNA.

For god's(tm) sake, there is still a Flat Earth Society.

Though I do sort of love it when smart people get trolled like this.

Re:it's a Loch not a lake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, in France too they don't have any lakes as far as I'm aware. They don't even have rivers, They have plenty of lacs and rivieres though.

Germany is also devoid of lakes, but is a few sees.

The Netherlands, famous for water management, surprisingly has no lakes too but they do have meers.

Spain has no lakes, but they have lagos!

Shall I continue you pedantic fuck?

Re:Homeopathy About to Be Debunked. Pictures at 11

[DontBeAMoran]

Aliens do exist and they're all being used by the Japanese cartoon porn industry.

The price of the genetic testing

[Dwedit]

The price of the genetic testing will be about $3.50.

Re:it's a Loch not a lake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Loch is just a gaelic word for lake. There is no fundamental difference between a loch and a lake.

Re:Let it go. There is no Loch Ness monster.

[aevan]

Ah, but what if they were capable of parthenogenesis, but only one of their clutch survives siblicide (low resources driving it) to reach adulthood, which is assured as their natural predators died out millions of years ago. Then one day the young supplants the old and the cycle continues - Nessie is dead, Long Live Nessie....

The original Loch Ness Monster has been expired 15 megannum, and is rotting like a corpse in Patagonia~

They are not they dislike it

[aepervius]

Last time I was there I friended a few locals at a pub, and the gist of it is that they dislike all nessie stuff, and think it overshadow their region and its history. Basically if you talk to the local they will barely mention it, some don't even do (and if you DO mention it you get the "tourist idiot" stamp and they won't talk to you). There are a few selling trinkets but you speak to most local, you pretty much the impression Nessie's story is a plague. As for "100 of years" that is a load of BS. There is a few story here and there and some hint at a very small monster (human sized roughly) but in reality until start of the 20th century (about 1930-1940) you pretty much have zero tradition of it. It only exploded with the Surgeon hoax photo.

Re:Let it go. There is no Loch Ness monster.

[Solandri]

Statistics favor there being no Loch Ness monster. Back in the latter half of the 1900s, about 100,000 people visited the lake each year. Only a few percent of them had cameras, and almost none of them had video cameras.

In the 2010s, about 200,000 people visited the lake each year. And nearly all of them had cameras with video capability. So statistically, you'd expect the number of photos purporting to show Nessie each year to have increased by about 100-fold, and the number of videos (i.e. mysterious ripples on the surface) to have increased 1000- or 10,000-fold.

No such increases have happened (and in fact the photographer of the most famous photo from the 1900s has come out and admitted he faked it). That makes it highly likely that there is no monster, and that most of the "sightings" in the 1900s were faked.

Champ

[Topwiz]

Lake Champlain supposedly has a monster known as Champ. The story is that Samuel de Champlain saw it when he first discovered the lake.

I saw something suspicious in two nearby lakes, Lake George in New York and Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. What at first appeared like a large creature with humps was actually several pike or sturgeon travelling nose to tail just barely under the surface.