About 15,000 years ago, a female wooly mammoth plunged through the ice in Siberia. And remarkably, as her remains were being dug out, blood began to stream out. The preserved specimen was discovered partially embedded in a chunk of ice at an excavation on the Lyakhovsky Island, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia. It’s not known if the blood or tissue samples contain living cells required for cloning. And even if such cells are recovered, the DNA repair would require a very complex process that could take years.
NOS Themes:
- science is tentative
- role of chance
- role of motivation and curiosity
I found this article very interesting because I didn't know humans could be preserved that well. The link below talks about moss that was also recovered from millions of years ago, and what the scientists did with, including attempts at cloning.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350646/description/Mosses_frozen_in_time_come_back_to_life
I found this very interesting! I didn't know what caused mammoths to become extinct, so I research and found that there are many theories. One of the most common thories is that the rising sea levels may have made their habitats unsuitable for them. Also mass hunting may have contributed to their extinction.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth#Extinction
I thought this article was really cool and interesting. I didn't know for sure how DNA repair worked so I did a little research.
ReplyDeleteI all sounds very complex, but from what I can tell there is an enzyme, much like the restriction enzyme, that repairs. Scientist are still discovering more about how they work. http://creation.com/DNA-repair-enzyme
That's so awesome! I heard about this a while back and I think it's really cool that people could uncover the remains of something that old. This just shows that it is very possible to discover something like a "living fossil" but rather in preserved form. Judging from what everyone else said above, A lot of factors definitely played out in preserving the remains of the mammoth so well, including the human being as well. I did some research and found that through the process of mummification, human bodies and animal remains can be preserved so well through extremely cold temperatures. This can help explain why the wooly mammoth was so well preserved, that the ice layer kept it insulated.
ReplyDeletehttp://webecoist.momtastic.com/2013/02/01/most-intriguing-mummies-perfectly-preserved-human-bodies/
This is so neat! The blood could be used for different tests to learn more about these creatures even though the cells may not be living. Cloning would be really cool too but if the cells are dead then that isn't quite possible. I am curious as to what information that the scientists could pull out of the blood sample they have found.
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