mammoth – Museum of the Weird

Posted on June 15, 2015 by MOTW Admin

Cloning dinosaurs

Hundreds of thousands poured into theatres this weekend to experience Jurassic World. While movie-goers are excited, not everyone is thrilled about the film. Some palaeontologists are preparing themselves for all of the stupid questions they will have to answer about dinosaur cloning. So, do we need to worry about a Jurassic Park disaster?

https://youtu.be/duTJP-ePewU

There you have it. Based on what we currently understand about cloning, we don’t have any way to regenerate a dinosaur. We’re just going to have to rely on time travel. Of course, there are other historic creatures that are within the reasonable DNA half-life, including Neanderthal Man. In this interview with Spiegel from several years ago, scientist, George Church, discusses the plausibility of cloning a Neanderthal Man and other topics that may shock or delight you. Church denied that he was seeking an “Adventurous Woman,” as some reported, to be a surrogate for a baby Neanderthal. We don’t know if he didn’t get a volunteer or if there were too many. (Can you just imagine the email?)

Photo of Alvin the bearded dragon — Alvin, a bearded dragon, is our official lucky lizard, live and on display

Are these places where science dare not go? If someone discovers a way around the half-life issue or wants to explore brining back a woolly mammoth or Neanderthal should we be worried or buy tickets? As host to the one and only Iceman, we would love to have a pet dinosaur. I guess we’ll have to be content to enjoy our lucky lizard, Alvin, on display in the museum.

Posted on June 5, 2013 by MOTW Admin

MAMMOTH FOUND WITH FLOWING BLOOD

More “news of the weird” today comes from the paleontology world. A fully preserved female mammoth was discovered by Russian scientists in Siberia recently. The specimen was complete with good quality muscle tissue and actual blood that still flowed freely from the mummified corpse. This discovery furthers the concept of one day cloning a mammoth or other prehistoric species. Of course, I beg the question again: haven’t people seen Jurassic Park?

The female mammoth, now named Lyuba, was found beneath the ice on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia. The blood was found pooled in the ice cavities located just below the belly of the beast. The unusual fact about this blood is that even at a temperature of 10C below zero the fluid flowed freely when the cavities were punctured with a poll pick.

“It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

A bacteriological analysis is currently being conducted on the blood sample. It has also been reported that the muscle tissue was so well-preserved that it had the consistency and appearance of fresh red meat. This is due to the fact that the lower half of the animal was trapped beneath pure ice. Scientists estimate the age of the mammoth, which lived approximately 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, to have been between 50 and 60 at the time of its death.

Results from the bacteriological analysis are expected back in late July.

Posted on September 4, 2012 by MOTW Admin

HUNDREDS OF ICE AGE REMAINS FOUND IN MEXICO

Some of the remains belong to well known ice age creatures, some have yet to be identified.

While building a new wastewater treatment plant near Mexico City, workers discovered the largest cache of ice age animal bones ever.

The Telegraph writes:

The bones could be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old and may include a human tooth from the late Pleistocene period, Mexico‘s National Institute of Anthropology and History said on Thursday.

Tusks, skulls, jawbones, horns, ribs, vertebrae and shells were discovered 65 feet deep in Atotonilco de Tula, a town in the state of Hidalgo, as workers built a drain, the institute said.

These remains belong to a range of species including mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, deer and glyptodons, the armadillo’s ancestor. Some bones may belong to bison, while others have not been identified.

Archeologists have worked for the past five months to recover the bones.

“It is the largest and most varied discovery of extinct megafauna found together in the Mexico basin,” archeologist Alicia Bonfil Olivera said in a statement.