The 400-Year-Old Shark
Scientists have just mapped the DNA of the Greenland shark, a giant fish that lives in the freezing cold waters of the North Atlantic. These sharks are the longest-living vertebrates on Earth—some can live for 400 years! That means there are sharks swimming today that were born before the lightbulb was invented. Researchers discovered that these sharks have a massive genome with special genes that repair their DNA, helping them stay healthy for centuries. Learn more!
Wee Ones
Greenland sharks grow very slowly, about 1 centimetre every year. If a tiny baby shark is 5 centimetres long and it grows 1 more centimetre, how many centimetres long is it now? Count on from 5!
Little Kids
If 3 scientists find 12 shark teeth on the ocean floor, how many teeth does each scientist get if they share them equally?
Big Kids
If a Greenland shark lives for 400 years, and a human lives for 80 years, how many human lifetimes fit inside one shark's life?
The Sky's the Limit
Scientists found that some DNA repair genes are duplicated in the shark's genome. If a gene is doubled twice (2 to the power of 2), how many copies are there? What if it is doubled five times (2 to the power of 5)?