Russian And Japanese Scientists Collaborate To Restore Extinct Mammoth
Posted: Saturday, December 10, 2011
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
The ancient Woolly Mammoth is thought to have become extinct many years ago, possibly as far back as 10,000 years by some forms of dating. They inhabited frigid portions of the world and therefore there are many well preserved fossils. However, due to the long periods of exposure to extremely low temperatures, not many samples of bone marrow can be found which are viable. However, the discovery of one in Yakutia in August 2011 was found to have well preserved portions of bone marrow. Scientists from Yakutia's Mammoth Museum and Japan's Kinki University have been studying the possibility of cloning mammoth for two years.
So far they are in the hopeful studying stage but they are optimistic that they will be able to succeed in this matter. If successful the prospects of restoring many different extinct species becomes more realistic.
The Japanese scientists have developed this procedure in Japan's Kobe University. The technology has already proven to be successful in a series of experiments. In 2008, for example, the scientists cloned a mouse which had died 16 years before that.
Woolly mammoths are common in the fossil record. Unlike most other prehistoric animals, their remains are often not literally fossilized - that is, turned into stone - but rather are preserved in their organic state. This is due in part to the frozen climate of their habitats, and to their massive size. Woolly mammoths are therefore among the best-understood prehistoric vertebrates known to science in terms of anatomy.
Woolly mammoths lived in two groups which are speculated to be divergent enough to be characterized as subspecies. One group stayed in the middle of the high Arctic, while the other group had a much wider range. The Bering Land Bridge likely played an important role in structuring woolly mammoth populations, acting as an ecological barrier. Recent stable isotope studies of Siberian and New World mammoths has shown there were also differences in climatic conditions on either side of the Bering Land Bridge, with Siberia being more uniformly colder and drier throughout the Late Pleistocene. (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth )
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I 'd love to see it happen. I want to be the first one on my block to have one as a pet!Thank you Steve, Yes, I wonder if they give good milk and how much.
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