Archaeology & Paleontology – Page 6

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Guest Blogger

30,000 YEAR OLD PLANT RESURRECTED!

Here is a plant that lived among woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers, brought back to life in present day.

We’re already able to recreate the world as it was thousands and thousands of years ago using data, science, and computers, but now we’re getting closer and closer to being able to bring that prehistoric world to life in our current reality.

Scientists from Russia have extracted ancient fruit, frozen in permafrost, hidden by a prehistoric squirrel over 30,000+ thousand years ago to regenerate a plant/flower that existed when ancient creatures like woolly mammoths, and even sabre-tooth tigers roamed the Earth.

Discover Magazine writes:

Fruits in my fruit bowl tend to rot into a mulchy mess after a couple of weeks. Fruits that are chilled in permanent Siberian ice fare rather better. After more than 30,000 years, and some care from Russian scientists, some ancient fruits have produced this delicate white flower.

These regenerated plants, rising like wintry Phoenixes from the Russian ice, are still viable. They produce their own seeds and, after a 30,000-year hiatus, can continue their family line.

The plant owes its miraculous resurrection to a team of scientists led by David Gilichinsky, and an enterprising ground squirrel. Back in the Upper Pleistocene, the squirrel buried the plant’s fruit in the banks of the Kolyma River. They froze.

Over millennia, the squirrel’s burrow fossilised and was buried under increasing layers of ice. The plants within were kept at a nippy -7 degrees Celsius, surrounded by permanently frozen soil and the petrifying bones of mammoths and woolly rhinos. They never thawed. They weren’t disturbed. By the time they were found and defrosted by scientists, they had been buried to a depth of 38 metres, and frozen for around 31,800 years.

DOES DEVIL’S HOLE REALLY EXIST?

"Devil's Hole" by photographer Pamela Smith.

There’s plenty of stories that tell a tale of an endless, bottomless pit that houses all kinds of wonders and supernatural beings down in its’ depths.

Supposedly, there’s one right here in America, hidden in the forests of Washington and only one man claims to have ever seen it.

Komo News writes:

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — From Bigfoot to the disappearance of D.B. Cooper, the Pacific Northwest is full of mysteries. Another mystery buried deep in the hills of eastern Washington keeps resurfacing. Ellensburg and its surrounding valleys and Manastash Ridge are beautiful in any season. Some believe what lies beneath is a deep, dark hole with supernatural powers.

A man named Red Elk is one of the only people alive known to have ever seen the mysterious hole. A Native American Shaman, or medicine man, Red Elk said his dad first showed him the hole in 1961. “He said ‘This is an endless hole,'” Red Elk said. Red Elk’s been back many times and said strange things happen every time he goes near it. “People get it confused with what I call the devil’s hole,” he said.

Many locals claim to know about the hole, but it didn’t become phenomena until 1997, when Mel Waters went on the Coast to Coast radio show with Art Bell. “I brought the dogs with me.” Waters said on the show. “They wouldn’t go anywhere near the damn thing.” Waters said the hole had a three-foot stone wall around it. It seemed bottomless to him, so he used an old shark fisherman’s trick — sending thousands of feet of fishing line down.

“What I did, was I sent down a roll of lifesavers,” he said. “So when it hit water the lifesavers would dissolve.” But the lifesavers came back up whole — no water — so how deep was this hole? Waters said he believed it descended miles into the earth and he heard strange stories about its powers. “One guy claims that he threw his departed canine down into the hole,” he said. “He swears the dog actually came back to him.”

WOOLLY MAMMOTH FILMED IN SIBERIA?

Is this a real Woolly Mammoth, thought to have gone extinct over 3,000 years ago?

This is a remarkable sighting if you can believe your eyes!

This fuzzy still frame from a video posted on Youtube seems to show a Woolly Mammoth in Siberia crossing an icy, flowing river in the heart of winter.

Although, on closer inspection, it seems a bit more likely to be a very large bear carrying a rather large fish. What would be the “trunk” of this beast doesn’t articulate like your average elephants would, doesn’t seem to be connected judging by the color seperation that happens where the link to the head would be and it seems to be dangling and moves only with the rushing of the water hitting it.

Here’s the footage shot by a government engineer while surveying for the new construction of roadways in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia. You be the judge of what you see and leave us some feedback!

The Sun writes:

A BEAST lurches through icy waters in a sighting a paranormal investigator thinks could prove woolly mammoths are not extinct after all.

The animal – thought to have mostly died out roughly 4,000 years ago – was apparently filmed wading through a river in the freezing wilds of Siberia.

The jaw-dropping footage was caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia, it is claimed.

He filmed the elephant-sized creature as it struggled against the racing water.

Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia.

LAKE MONSTER FILMED IN ICELAND

Lake Lagarfljot, shot by Brian Rueb of brianruebphotography.com, where the "monster" is said to dwell.

Here’s some amazing footage straight out of one of the most beautiful places in the world, Iceland. Well, more specifically this footage was captured at the river of Jökulsá í Fljótsdal in eastern Iceland and is remarkably clear for a “monster” sighting of any kind, let alone this one in particular which seems to have never been caught on film before.

A still frame from the video of the Lagarfljotsormurinn, found on Youtube.

From the still frame above it would seem as though this “monster” has a very snake-like head and body, almost one of a python or a constrictor type that have been known and documented to grow into some of the largest snakes in the world.

Here is the Lagarfljotsormurinn caught on film in Iceland just days ago:

Iceland Review writes:

Footage was captured of an obscure phenomenon yesterday which appeared to be swimming in the glacial river Jökulsá í Fljótsdal, east Iceland

People speculate whether this may be the notorious snake-like monster Lagarfljótsormurinn, which is said to reside in the lake Lagarfljót.

The video was taken by Hjörtur Kjerúlf and posted on ruv.is.

Lagarfljótsormurinn is Iceland’s equivalent to Scotland’s Loch Ness monster. It was first mentioned in sources dating back to 1345. According to legend, it was at first a tiny worm which was placed on a ring of gold to make the gold grow.

When the owner of the ring returned she noticed to her great terror that the worm had grown immensely but not the gold. She tossed the ring and worm into Lagarfljót where the worm continued to grow.

NEWLY DISCOVERED ‘SUPERGIANT’ CRUSTACEAN

This big guy is usually only 2-3cm long but, not this time.

Look at this thing, it’s huge!

This is the size it’s supposed to be:

What this new crustacean looks like at normal sizes.

Apparently, they pulled this and 6 other ‘Supergiant” crustaceans out of water so deep that, before this, they thought nothing was able to live that far down into the dark depths of our oceans.

They were wrong, which seems to happen every now and then in the world of science but, you know, that’s why we keep studying!

Could you imagine if other things got “super-sized” like this randomly? They compared finding this gigantic crustacean with finding a foot-long cockroach. That’s one bug infestation I do NOT want to ever have.

BBC News writes:

A huge crustacean has been found lurking 7km down in the waters off the coast of New Zealand. The creature – called a supergiant – is a type of amphipod, which are normally around 2-3cm long.

But these beasts, discovered in the Kermadec Trench, were more than 10 times bigger: the largest found measured in at 34cm.

Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab, said: “It’s a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach.”

“I stopped and thought: ‘What on Earth was that?’ This amphipod was far bigger than I ever thought possible. It just goes to show that the more you look, the more you find”

The strange animals were found using a large metal trap, which had been equipped with a camera, housed in sapphire glass to keep it safe from the high pressures of the deep sea.

Seven specimens were caught in the trap and nine were captured on film by the team from the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), in New Zealand.

EVOLUTION IN ACTION; FIRST HYRBRID SHARK EVER!

This hybrid has both Common and Australian black tip shark DNA.

This is pretty darn fascinating! Here’s life showing us how it adapts and evolves no matter what the conditions may be. In this case, nature has “created” a shark that usually lives in warmer waters but, through mating with genetic relatives, is now able to expand its’ range to be able to swim and hunt in cooler waters.

Discovery News writes:

Scientists said on Tuesday that they had discovered the world’s first hybrid sharks in Australian waters, a potential sign the predators were adapting to cope with climate change.

The mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was an unprecedented discovery with implications for the entire shark world, said lead researcher Jess Morgan.

“It’s very surprising because no one’s ever seen shark hybrids before, this is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination,” Morgan, from the University of Queensland, said.

“This is evolution in action.”

“YETI” FINGER DEBUNKED

The "Yeti" finger that was brought back from a monastery hidden in the mountains of Nepal.

Well, we here at The Museum of the Weird were certainly excited about this suposed “Yeti” finger that was to be tested and were hoping for final proof of something that we all believe to be very real.

The hand, the finger tested was removed from, along with a scalp of unknown origin.

Unfortunately, science was not on our side this time and debunked what was looking to be a very promising path to proof of the Nepalese “Yeti” or, Abominable Snowman.

Cryptomundo writes:

The Pangboche Yeti finger was rediscovered while on display at London’s Royal College of Surgeons. The late Dr. William Charles Osman Hill, a consultant to the Tom Slick expeditions, bequeathed it to the Hunterian Museum, which is a division of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The alleged Yeti finger from the Pangboche hand was found by the UK’s Daily Mail reporter Matthew Hill, several months ago and has undergone DNA testing. This certainly has been a year of surprises coming forth from the Tom Slick expeditions of the late 1950s.

Today, on a BBC program, the results of a new DNA test were broadcast. The result of the DNA analysis were announced on a program entitled “Yeti Finger” on BBC Radio 4 on December 27, 2011, at 11 am local time.

For the detailed results and MUCH more info and even videos from the original expedition to Nepal in the 50s, head on over to cryptomundo.com

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Guest Blogger

STONEHENGE ORIGIN REVEALED!

Well, the amazingly large stones of Stonehenge have been traced back to where they came from, a quarry in Wales over 150 miles away, how insane!

If you’ve ever been to Stonehenge itself, located in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom, you would think that moving stones of this size from such a distance, or any distance really, would be impossible. Yet, somehow, our ancestors of thousands of years ago knew methods and secrets of doing so that we are still trying to figure out today but, we’re getting closer and closer to the how of it all every day.

Now the only question we really need to answer is, “Why?”.

The Huffington Post writes:

For the first time ever, scientists say they have determined the exact origins of some of the rocks that make up England’s famous Stonehenge.

By studying the mineral make-up and texture of fragments of the stones, two geologists claim to have traced the rocks that form a horseshoe and the innermost ring of the prehistoric landmark to an outcropping 160 miles away, according to the BBC.

The rhyolite debitage rocks — dubbed bluestones — come from a 230-foot cluster in Pembrokeshire, Wales, called Craig Rhos-y-Felin, The Independentreports.

Though significant, the discovery by geologists Robert Ixer and Richard Bevins doesn’t answer one of Stonehenge’s biggest mysteries: How exactly the builders of the ancient site transported the rocks such a great distance.

WHO WANTS A WOOLY MAMMOTH?!

With the long strides in medical and scientific research and discoveries that are happening more and more often it looks like we have a whole lot of really cool and, once thought impossible, things coming our way.

One of recent interest and, one I find absolutely fascinating, is the ability to clone animals, which has been proven possible many times over but, what about the animals that lived on earth thousands of years ago?

Seems like we’re in luck.

CBS News writes:

(Livescience.com) Woolly mammoths — shaggy, long-extinct relatives of modern elephants — could be easier to clone than one might think, researchers say.

Still, even if any such efforts succeed, they might take decades to accomplish, not the five years in which scientists from Russia and Japan reportedly have said they can achieve it.

Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) wandered the planet for more than a million years, ranging from Europe to Asia to North America. Nearly all of these giants vanished from Siberia by about 10,000 years ago, although dwarf mammoths survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 3,700 years ago.

Scientists regularly conduct research on the DNA of these shaggy giants, extracting it from tusks, bone and teeth. With all this genetic material on hand, there lies the distinct possibility mammoths might be cloned one day.

Although some sources say the cloning of a wooly mammoth will happen soon, possibly within 5 years,others, such as CBS News, think it may take just a bit longer than that.

What I do know is that, if they can clone a mammoth, they can probably make a tiny version of one as well, right? Now, just try and convince me that a Mini-Mammoth would not be the greatest pet ever.

ARK OF THE COVENANT FINALLY REVEALED?

It seems as though one of the most important relics in human history could possibly be shown to the public!

Check back here for details as they develop!

The Daily Mail writes:

A very British problem of a leaky church roof could be about to give the world the chance to glimpse the legendary Ark of the Covenant.

That’s because the claimed home of the iconic relic – a small chapel in Ethiopia – has sprung a leak and so the Ark could now be on the move.

The Ark – which The Bible says holds God’s Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai – is said to have been kept in Aksum, in the Chapel of the Tablet, adjacent to St Mary of Zion Church, since the 1960s.

According to the Old Testament, it was first kept in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem for centuries until a Babylonian invasion in the 6th century BC.

Since then it’s been the goal of many adventurers and archaeologists to find it. Most-famously, but also fictitiously, Indiana Jones was shown in the 1981 Steven Spielberg film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

There has also been a long-running claim from the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia that they have had the Ark for centuries, and since the 1960s it has apparently been kept in the chapel.