siberia – Museum of the Weird

Posted on September 7, 2015 by MOTW Admin

Send in the prehistoric clones

Museum Nature Science Woolly Mammoth — Will we be able to see these magnificent creatures in the flesh?
Photo by Joseph Martinez [cc-by-nd 2.0]

If you read our article from 2011, you may have been wondering when that woolly mammoth clone would be available? It may be closer than you think.

A new laboratory in the icy wastelands of Siberia is devoted to cloning extinct animals, including the woolly mammoth. Located in Yakutia, the facility may have the largest collection of remains from prehistoric animals—everything from prehistoric dogs and horses to the enormous precursor to the elephant that once roamed the earth.

An article in Russian magazine, Ogonek (see original or English translation), reports that the lab is very focused on cloning mammoths as their first project in collaboration with the Sooam Biotech company, which has already had success in dog cloning. They’ll never do it, though. Right?

This article from the Telegraph tells how Harvard University researchers have already copied 14 woolly mammoth genes into the genome of an Asian elephant. While their work has not yet been published, and the genes have only lived in a lab at this point, it’s an important step toward a living, breathing mammoth.

While it would be fantastic to be able to see these prehistoric creatures in the flesh, there is always the question of whether this is a good idea. Should creatures whose time on the planet has come and gone be allowed to rest in peace? In the mean time, we’ll keep an eye on developments.

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 November 2, 2012 by MOTW Admin

SCIENTIST STUDY HAIR FROM A “YETI” AND CONFIRM IT AS REAL!

Has the Yeti’s existence been confirmed?

News.com.au writes:

DNA tests on hair found supposedly found in a Siberian may actually prove the existence of the Abominable Snowman.

Three separate DNA tests of the hair reported it “came from a human-like creature which is not a Homosapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey”.

Yeti hunters claim Yeti DNA is less than one per cent different to that of a human. But no-one has confirmed that “fact” to date, because no Yeti has ever been found or tested for DNA.

Until now. The DNA tests were carried out at universities in Moscow, St Petersburg at Idaho in the US. It is understood a fourth DNA test is also being carried out in the UK.

“We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human, and not the animals known to the area where they were found, like a bear, or wolf, or goat, or any other animal,” Professor Valentin Sapunov of the Russian State Hydrometeorological Institute said.

“It was a branch of our university in St Petersburg that carried out a DNA test, and the Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. The tests were performed by laboratory of electronic microscopy and laboratory of molecular genealogical classification.”

The “Yeti hair” was allegedly found in Siberia’s Azasskaya Cave by Dr Igor Birtsev, Russia’s leading advocate of the existence of the abominable snowman.

Posted on September 30, 2012 by MOTW Admin

LAKE LABYNKYR OF SIBERIA HAS A HIDDEN MONSTER

Could this be the Russian Loch Ness Monster? Is there a Siberian Nessie?

The Siberian times writes:

Known as ‘Russia’s Loch Ness Monster’, the accounts of the creature in Yakutia predate the Scottish claims yet in many ways are similar.

Intriguingly, too, there are theories that Labynkyr – which has unusual cracks on its 60 to 80 metre deep floor – is connected by underwater channels to another lake, Vorota, where monster sightings have also been recorded, including by respected Soviet geologist Viktor Tverdokhlebov, an academician not given to hyperbole.

Associate Professor of Biogeography Lyudmila Emeliyanova revealed to The Siberian Times that on her own scientific mission to Labynkyr she recorded ‘several seriously big underwater objects’ with sonar readings.

She is not the only researcher to have done so.

‘It was our fourth or fifth day at the lake when our echo sounding device registered a huge object in the water under our boat,’ she said.

‘The object was very dense, of homogeneous structure, surely not a fish nor a shoal of fish, and it was above the bottom. I was very surprised but not scared and not shocked, after all we did not see this animal, we only registered a strange object in the water. But I can clearly say – at the moment, as a scientist, I cannot offer you any explanation of what this object might be.’

SIBERIAN LIVESTOCK DRAINED OF BLOOD BY VAMPIRE?

Between this current and past reports, there has got to be a vampire-like creature we’re missing out there somewhere.

The Moscow News writes:

A blood-sucking creature is preying upon goats near Novosibirsk. As rational explanations run thin on the ground, the specter of the so-called chupacabra raises its demon head.

Horrified farmers and smallholders are confronted by the drained corpses of their livestock in the morning, bloodless and bearing puncture marks to the neck but otherwise largely in tact.

But local cops are reluctant to record apparent vampire attacks, as they await official recertification, leaving the locals up in arms.