Environmental DNA Floating in the Air Tracks Wildlife, Viruses — Even Drugs

Dublin is known as a city where you can enjoy a few pints of Guiness, get a warm welcome from the locals and hear lively traditional music drifting out of pubs and into the city air.

But it’s not just music floating on the breeze. The air of Dublin also contains cannabis, poppy, even magic mushrooms — at least their DNA.

That’s according to a new study that reveals the power of environmental DNA, vacuumed up from the air, which can track everything from elusive bobcats to illicit drugs.

“The level of information that’s available in environmental DNA is such that we’re only starting to consider what the potential applications can be, from humans, to wildlife to other species that have implications for human health,” said David Duffy, Ph.D., a professor of wildlife disease genomics at the University of Florida and lead author of a new study showing the widespread utility of DNA vacuumed from the air.

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