Home Menu

Site Navigation


Notices

General Chat General discussion. Want to chat about anything not covered in another forum - This is the place!

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 14-07-2007, 11:15 PM #1
Tanser_Man Tanser_Man is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands
Posts: 3,939
Tanser_Man Tanser_Man is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands
Posts: 3,939
Default Baby Mammoth Discovery

Did anybody read about this in the week about scientists getting hold of a fully preserved baby mammoth in Siberia?!

For those of you who didn't, the story is below.

There's talk of them maybe being able to reintroduce the species back from extinction, should they find good DNA samples, do you think this would be a good thing?

Quote:
Baby mammoth discovery unveiled



A baby mammoth unearthed in the permafrost of north-west Siberia could be the best preserved specimen of its type, scientists have said.

The frozen carcass is to be sent to Japan for detailed study.

The six-month-old female calf was discovered on the Yamal peninsula of Russia and is thought to have died 10,000 years ago.

The animal's trunk and eyes are still intact and some of its fur remains on the body.

Mammoths are an extinct member of the elephant family. Adults often possessed long, curved tusks and a coat of long hair.

The 130cm (4ft 3ins) tall, 50kg Siberian specimen dates to the end of the last Ice Age, when the great beasts were vanishing from the planet.

It was discovered by a reindeer herder in May this year. Yuri Khudi stumbled across the carcass near the Yuribei River, in Russia's Yamal-Nenets autonomous district.

Last week, an international delegation of experts convened in the town of Salekhard, near the discovery site, to carry out a preliminary examination of the animal.

"The mammoth has no defects except that its tail was bit off," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of the delegation.

Map, BBC
"In terms of its state of preservation, this is the world's most valuable discovery," he said.

Larry Agenbroad, director of the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs research centre in South Dakota, US, said: "To find a juvenile mammoth in any condition is extremely rare." Dr Agenbroad added that he knew of only three other examples.

Some scientists hold out hope that well preserved sperm or other cells containing viable DNA could be used to resurrect the mammoth lineage.

Despite the inherent difficulties, Dr Agenbroad remains optimistic about the potential for cloning.

"When we got the Jarkov mammoth [found frozen in Taimyr, Siberia, in 1997], the geneticists told me: 'if you can get us good DNA, we'll have a baby mammoth for you in 22 months'," he told BBC News.

That specimen failed to yield DNA of sufficient quality, but some researchers believe it may only be a matter of time until the right find emerges from Siberia.

Bringing mammoths back from the dead could take the form of injecting sperm into the egg of a relative, such as the Asian elephant, to try to create a hybrid.

Alternatively, scientists could attempt to clone a pure mammoth by fusing the nucleus of a mammoth cell with an elephant egg cell stripped of its DNA.

But Dr Agenbroad warned that scientifically valuable Siberian mammoth specimens were being lost to a lucrative trade in ivory, skin, hair and other body parts.

The city of Yakutsk in Russia's far east forms the hub for this trade.

Local people are scouring the Siberian permafrost for remains to sell on, and, according to Dr Agenbroad, more carcasses could be falling into the hands of dealers than are finding their way to scientists.

"These products are primarily for collectors and it is usually illicit," he explained.

"Originally it was for ivory, now it is everything. You can now go on almost any fossil marketing website and find mammoth hair for $50 an inch. It has grown beyond anyone's imagination."

Dr Agenbroad added: "Russia says that any mammoth remains are the property of the Russian government, but nobody really pays attention to that."

The Yamal mammoth is expected to be transferred to Jikei University in Tokyo, Japan, later this year.

A team led by Professor Naoki Suzuki will carry out an extensive study of the carcass, including CT scans of its internal organs.

Mammoths first appeared in the Pliocene Epoch, 4.8 million years ago.

What caused their widespread disappearance at the end of the last Ice Age remains unclear; but climate change, overkill by human hunters, or a combination of both could have been to blame.

One population of mammoths lived on in isolation on Russia's remote Wrangel Island until about 5,000 years ago.
The article was taken fro the bbc.
Tanser_Man is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 14-07-2007, 11:16 PM #2
cepb cepb is offline
Banned
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: South Wales
Posts: 1,657
cepb cepb is offline
Banned
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: South Wales
Posts: 1,657
Default

Gosh it would be amazing if they could clone it. If they found another one this well preserved they could start a new species of mammoth.
cepb is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-07-2007, 09:16 AM #3
Ruth*Star's Avatar
Ruth*Star Ruth*Star is offline
GetReadyToFly
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: England*North East*
Posts: 9,821

Favourites (more):
BB12 USA: Rachel
Dancing on Ice 2010: Danniella
Ruth*Star Ruth*Star is offline
GetReadyToFly
Ruth*Star's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: England*North East*
Posts: 9,821

Favourites (more):
BB12 USA: Rachel
Dancing on Ice 2010: Danniella
Default

They couldn't clone it, the cells to do it will have died off.
Ruth*Star is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-07-2007, 09:30 AM #4
andybigbro's Avatar
andybigbro andybigbro is offline
BB Sees All 👀
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Posts: 29,727

Favourites (more):
BB2024: Emma
BB2023: Trish


andybigbro andybigbro is offline
BB Sees All 👀
andybigbro's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Posts: 29,727

Favourites (more):
BB2024: Emma
BB2023: Trish


Default

It just looks like a baby elephant to me
andybigbro is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-07-2007, 10:16 AM #5
Tanser_Man Tanser_Man is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands
Posts: 3,939
Tanser_Man Tanser_Man is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands
Posts: 3,939
Default

Quote:
Originally posted by Ruth.El
They couldn't clone it, the cells to do it will have died off.
Not really, if the mammoth has been frozen and preserved since it's death some 10,000 years ago, surely the DNA will still be within?
Tanser_Man is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-07-2007, 08:45 PM #6
Z's Avatar
Z Z is offline
Z
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 23,560


Z Z is offline
Z
Z's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 23,560


Default

Ooft, that's a bit cool! Must've been a bit weird to find. Y'know, herding your reindeer, as you do.. WHAMMOTH!
Z is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Reply

Bookmark/share this topic

Tags
baby, discovery, mammoth


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 03:42 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2025 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
 

About Us ThisisBigBrother.com

"Big Brother and UK Television Forum. Est. 2001"

 

© 2023
no new posts