mammoth blood frozen

[redrobin]

for 10,000 years. My stupid freezer lest beef freezer burn after a year or so but it only goes down to around 0 F.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57586854/woolly-mammoth-containing-liquid-blood-discovered-in-russia/

The discovery of a woolly mammoth's body in Siberia this week has amazed Russian scientists because of how well preserved the animal's blood and muscle tissue is.

The mammoth, which is estimated to have lived 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, was discovered on the Lyakhovsky Islands in northeastern Russia by an expedition team from North-Eastern Federal University.



The scientists believe the blood and tissue of the animal was preserved due to the permafrost, permanently frozen soil.

Despite freezing temperatures of 14 degrees Fahrenheit, the mammoth's blood was liquid, still leaking under the animal.

"We have put the blood sample into the freezer of the Mammoth Museum. It still did not freeze at -17 degrees Celsius [1.4 degrees Fahrenheit]. We need to study it thoroughly to draw any conclusions," Semyon Grigoriev, expedition participant and director of the Mammoth Museum of North-Eastern Federal University, told Russian media.

He suggested that the blood could contain cryoprotective features, that would protect cells or tissues from damage during freezing, which could have helped the animal survive the long winters.

The expedition team believe the creature died from starvation after possibly getting stuck in a swamp.

Russian media reported that this discovery is the first time scientists have managed to obtain mammoth's blood so well preserved.

Since the 1990's, scientists have made several unsuccessful attempts to clone the long-extinct animals by using cells from previously discovered mammoths.
© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What fools people are to believe scientists that claim blood will remain preserved for 10,000 years at only 14F.

 

[Mike]

What fools people are to believe scientists that claim blood will remain preserved for 10,000 years at only 14F.

Could the preservation be because of not only the cryo-preservatives but also that it was not TOO cold?

We know that additives such as egg yolk, etc. must be added to semen when freezing because the intense cold of the liquid nitrogen will burst the cells.

Might be that the warmer temp doesn't do all that cellular damage?

Watched the video and it looked sort of pinkish......................

Or Anti-freeze in the blood?

Mammoths had more than woolly coats to protect them from the frigid conditions of their sub-zero stomping grounds, scientists have discovered.

The extinct beasts had a form of antifreeze blood that kept their bodies supplied with oxygen in the sub-zero temperatures, according to a study of DNA extracted from 43,000-year-old mammoth remains.

A genetic adaptation in the woolly mammoths' haemoglobin – the molecular cage that carries oxygen in the blood – allowed them to thrive at high latitudes without losing much heat.

Ancestors of the woolly mammoth originated in equatorial Africa about seven million years ago, but populations migrated north more than one million years ago, in a period of Earth's history when climate change caused temperatures to plummet.

Unlike modern elephants, which have evolved large ears and other characteristics to keep cool in excessive heat, ancestral mammoths survived by evolving ways of saving heat, such as small ears and tails.

In the latest study, a team led by Kevin Campbell at the University of Manitoba in Canada found another physiological trick that mammoths used to endure the ice age. Campbell's team isolated haemoglobin DNA from a woolly mammoth recovered from the Siberian permafrost and compared it with genetic code extracted from modern African and Asian elephants.

The mammoth's DNA differed in a small but significant way. Changes in one percent of the proteins studied showed that it took less energy for mammoth haemoglobin to release its oxygen into the body as it coursed through the blood vessels. "It literally allows their blood to run cold," Campbell said.

"Without this genetic adaptation, woolly mammoths would lose more heat in winter, and they would have to replace that energy by eating more. In winter, there is less food around, so it was clearly a benefit to have this." The research is reported in the journal Nature Genetics.

Current Arctic species, such as musk ox and reindeer, have evolved a similar antifreeze system independently.

Campbell said the work shows how paleobiology – broadly the study of ancient, extinct life – has come of age. "We resurrected mammoth haemoglobin. It's no different from going back 40,000 years in a time machine and taking a blood sample from the animal."

Michi Hofreiter, a co-author of the study at the University of York, said: "Our study is the first one to reconstruct an evolutionary important, adaptive trait from an extinct species using ancient DNA.

"It therefore opens up the possibility to build up a much more complete picture of morphology, physiology and evolutionary adaptations than would be possible using non-molecular study of fossil bones."

 

[Whitewing]

but populations migrated north more than one million years ago,in a period of Earth's history when climate change caused temperatures to plummet.

Hmmmm. :???: :???: :???:

 

[jodywy]

how many AUMs is a mammoth?