Italian researchers sequenced DNA from sticky-tape samples taken from the Shroud of Turin in 1978, using a method that picks up many species at once. They found several human maternal lineages, skin bacteria and salt-loving microbes, traces of wheat, carrot, maize, banana and peanut, DNA of cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs and cats, and even a link to Mediterranean red coral. The study appeared in Scientific Reports.

The authors are clear about the limits: the DNA piled up from countless contacts over centuries, and finding a species says nothing about when it arrived. So the work cannot prove the cloth's age or authenticity, whatever some headlines suggest. For sceptics it is a neat lesson in what a test can and cannot show.

Source: University of Lancashire via ScienceDaily (2026-11-08)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/11/261108202703.htm

Summarised by the FTI newsdesk.