Polar Bears and Brown Bears Have an Ancient, Intimate Relationship, Scientists Say
A polar bear in Hudson Bay in 2007.Photo: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP (Getty Images)Researchers have extracted DNA from a 115,000-year-old polar bear jawbone and used it to analyze the genetic relationship between these Arctic predators and their brown bear cousins (grizzlies included). They found that polar bears intermixed with brown bears quite a bit over the millennia.Polar bear fossils are rare, and many of those that are found are relatively young. But scientists got lucky just over a decade ago, when a!-->!-->!-->!-->!-->!-->…