Did someone say mummy?!
Posted on 11/09/2014 2:17:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Many large charismatic mammals went extinct at the end of the Ice Age (approx 11,000 years ago), including the Steppe bison, Bison priscus. A recent find in Eastern Siberia has uncovered one of these bison, literally, frozen in time.
The most complete frozen mummy of the Steppe bison yet known, dated to 9,300 years before present, was recently uncovered in the Yana-Indigirka Lowland and a necropsy was performed to learn about how this animal lived and died at the end of the Ice Age. The Yukagir bison mummy, as it is named, has a complete brain, heart, blood vessels and digestive system, although some organs have shrunk significantly over time. The necropsy of this unique mummy showed a relatively normal anatomy with no obvious cause of death. However, the lack of fat around abdomen of the animal makes researchers think that the animal may have died from starvation...
...one project scientist, Olga Potapova, is from the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs in South Dakota, USA, she tells us, "The Yukagir bison mummy became the third find out of four now known complete mummies of this species discovered in the world, and one out of two adult specimens that are being kept preserved with internal organs and stored in frozen conditions", making this find one of high importance...
Frozen bison and mammoth mummies are changing the way we think about paleontology because of the large amount of information that can be ascertained from each specimen, with new scientific methods and approaches that became available within the last decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Chilly!
Hey I know lets clone it. :-)
LOL! Sounds like the Democratic Part.
Importantly, if they can recover enough of its DNA, they might be able to do a multi-generational reconstruction of the species.
In the first generation, its DNA is used to create a cross with a modern bison, hopefully producing viable hybrid offspring. Then in the second and subsequent generations, more of the ancient DNA is integrated into the offspring, until eventually its DNA is identical to the ancient species.
This technique was created with the idea of eventually bringing back the wooly mammoth. But bison would be a great first step.
Even just a comparion of 9K old and current bison would be interesting.
he He He.
Back in 2008, some folks referred to obama as ‘Charismatic”. I NEVER could see it. He ALWAYS made me sick to see or hear him.
Evan as a Charismatic Evangelical, i find that picture quite scary! LOL!
Did someone say mummy?!
Kewel!
A meat puzzle...
The hair is held in place supernaturally. Didn’t you know that? :-)
Will Putin be shown riding it or trying to bread with it?
HAHAHAHAHA
It really seems like it would be fairly easy (as these things go) to reconstruct this species assuming that good DNA can be extracted. It might be better (or worse,or just different) than what we have now.
One thing that I’ve wondered about, is that a reconstructed species might be extremely susceptible to modern diseases, because disease and the present biosphere of creatures have both evolved considerably over time in the “war” between them. If this is so, any reconstructed species like a bison or wooly mammoth or even a dinosaur might never make it out of a lab.
Someone coined the phrase “charismatic megafauna” back around the 1990s, IIRC. It just refers to large animals that humans like, and will therefore be more inclined to help in their rescue or conservation, e.g., elephants, whales.
I don’t think it has any actual scientific meaning, so it is very strange that it is used here.
Funny thing is that this particular “Charismatic megafauna” is from an epoch when humans would love them a lot...for DINNER! hahaha
Mmmmmmmmmmmm...That looks GOOD!
(I am a contented carnivore, myself!)
Tommy’s Joynt, my favorite San Francisco restaurant. I don’t think they’ve changed the signs (or prices) since the 1980s.
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