This is really cool. Scientists believe that they have found a protein — hemoglobin — in mammoths that had adapted to release oxygen into their bodies like a type of “anti-freeze blood” to allow the animals to survive harsh winter conditions.
The scientists were able to “revive” the blood so that it was like taking a blood sample from a living mammoth.
The anti-freeze blood allowed the mammoths to flourish during Pleistocene times and to star in a series of Ice Age movies.
For the full story, click here
And Rush lives…….
” … you could have a mammoth small enough to cuddle.”(Maaarrghk!)
===========================================================
Cuddling or Coddling … sorry, bad joke
Blouise. As a matter of fact that’s exactly what happened on Iceland. They got trapped on the island after an ice bridge melted. There were so few resources that the mammoths did actually get smaller as a way of avoiding dying out. I think the final few generations were almost half the sixe of specimens found in other areas.
I guess if our Japanese friend could get hold of Icelandic “pigmy” mammoth DNA then it may be possible and you could have a mammoth small enough to cuddle.
There are also fish that have evolved an anti-freeze protein in their blood:
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1996/nstc96rp/sb3.htm
Maaarrghk! consistently introduces thought provoking subjects.
I wonder if there is a way to breed a mini-mammoth.
Perhaps a transfusion of that anti-freeze into honey bees would be prudent.
For the 4th year in a row more than a third of their colonies failed to survive.
http://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2010/04/ice-bees-gone-rain-ocean-rivers.html
Very interesting! Thanks for the link to the article.
Wood frogs have their own kind of antifreeze too.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/frogs/ecosystem/antifreeze.php
The guy did stress that this would be a one off Byron. The enviroment has changed a bit since mammoths were last around and there isn’t anywhere where it would be feasible to breed a sustainable herd without them ruining the local enviroment.
I guess they might be tasty though – I read somewhere that the buffalo was saved from extinction in the US because some guy found out how good they tasted so decided to farm them.
Interesting mammoth fact:- when the great pyramids were being built, there were still a small number of mammoths on Iceland. So they finally died out quite recently.
Maaarrghk:
they dont eat people, so I say no problem. Our ancestors ate them so they are probably tasty. And maybe low in fat like Buffalo. Eat like the Flintstones and have a mammoth burger.
Revive the blood – wow! I wonder if they can get DNA from that?
I saw a documentary a few years back – a Japanese scientist was trying to get undamaged mammoth DNA so that he could use it to artificially inseminate an elephant. The idea was of a one-off experiment to produce something that was almost pure mammoth within a few generations.
Now the rest of you can go and argue about the ethics……..