--Chad Love

A while back we posted up a video purporting to show a woolly mammoth crossing a river in Siberia. That was a fairly obvious hoax. This, however, is not.

From this story in the (UK) Telegraph:

An entire flower from the Ice Age has been resurrected by Russian scientists in a pioneering experiment that could pave the way for the revival of other species including the mammoth. They say the Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated and is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds. The raw material for the project was fruit tissues from an Ice Age squirrel's chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. The Russians said the experiment proves that permafrost serves as a natural depository for ancient life forms. They published their findings in Tuesday's "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" of the United States.

"We consider it essential to continue permafrost studies in search of an ancient genetic pool, that of pre-existing life, which hypothetically has long since vanished from the earth's surface," the scientists said in the article. Canadian researchers had earlier regenerated some significantly younger plants from seeds found in burrows. Svetlana Yashina of the Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy Of Sciences, who led the regeneration effort, said the revived plant looked very similar to its modern version, which still grows in the same area in northeastern Siberia.

The burrows were located 125 feet below the present surface in layers containing bones of large mammals, such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse and deer. The group says the study has demonstrated that tissue can survive ice conservation for tens of thousands of years, opening the way to the possible resurrection of Ice Age mammals. "If we are lucky, we can find some frozen squirrel tissue," Dr Gubin told The Associated Press. "And this path could lead us all the way to mammoth." Japanese scientists are already searching in the same area for mammoth remains, but Dr Gubin voiced hope that the Russians will be the first to find some frozen animal tissue that could be used for regeneration. "It's our land, we will try to get them first," he said.

So maybe, just maybe, we'll someday end up having that "best woolly mammoth caliber" discussion after all...

Comments (6)

from 2lb.test wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

Does anyone else think this could be a Pandora's box of invasive species? Evolution left these organisms extinct for a reason, if they're revived without natural predators, or other natural controls we could be resurrecting another kudzu or purple loosestrife.

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from Ontario Honker ... wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

Two-pound, I think we have little to fear. Ice age animals and plants lived in an exactly opposite environmental situation than the one we are encountering today. I doubt anything resurrected from that era will have much chance surviving on its own today.

Lupine seeds retrieved from marmot remains that died during the last ice age were brought to life many years ago. I remember incorporating that fact into my subalpine meadow walk at Hurricane Ridge twenty-five years ago when I met my late wife. But, of course, the lupine is still with us (well, several different varieties of the lupine). Some seeds are incredibly indestructable. However, the above is a case of an EXTINCT plant being brought back not just from a seed but from only a piece of tissue. Fruit tissue WOULD NOT be the seed, but rather just the nourishing tissue surrounding the seed. Look forward to seeing what more they can do with this. Pieces of frozen mammoth have been recovered from glaciers for years. I remember several incidents when I was a kid.

Wow, that would be something. Reintroduce mammoths to Yellowstone. Talk about fence wreckers! Wouldn't the ranchers in Paradise Valley have a cow! Or any that crossed into their ranches.

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from vasportsman wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

It will never work with mammals, in addition to their habits, food, and climate being thousands of years old, so are their immune systems, one of the keys to evolutionary survival is the constant adaptation to pathogens which are also constantly evolving, if they do find a way to resurrect one of these animals it will not survive very long IMO.

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from bassman06 wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

The Dodo bird might be a good shot though, who knows? I'm not into cloning that much, if there's anything to be cloned, I'd rather see cloned limbs for veterans and organs that would be donated for people in need of it.

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from shadbuster wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

Hope I can draw tags for the first woolly rhino hunt!

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from dave63go wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

I concur with 2lb.test. Could we be reviving a new kudzu? And, to paraphrase one of the characters of Jurassic Park, "....you got so caught up in COULD YOU do it, that you lost sight of SHOULD YOU do it."

But resurrecting a plant via some seeds is one thing, anyone who thinks they'll get a wooly mammoth out of a petri dish needs a reality check.

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from dave63go wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

I concur with 2lb.test. Could we be reviving a new kudzu? And, to paraphrase one of the characters of Jurassic Park, "....you got so caught up in COULD YOU do it, that you lost sight of SHOULD YOU do it."

But resurrecting a plant via some seeds is one thing, anyone who thinks they'll get a wooly mammoth out of a petri dish needs a reality check.

+2 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from 2lb.test wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

Does anyone else think this could be a Pandora's box of invasive species? Evolution left these organisms extinct for a reason, if they're revived without natural predators, or other natural controls we could be resurrecting another kudzu or purple loosestrife.

+1 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Ontario Honker ... wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

Two-pound, I think we have little to fear. Ice age animals and plants lived in an exactly opposite environmental situation than the one we are encountering today. I doubt anything resurrected from that era will have much chance surviving on its own today.

Lupine seeds retrieved from marmot remains that died during the last ice age were brought to life many years ago. I remember incorporating that fact into my subalpine meadow walk at Hurricane Ridge twenty-five years ago when I met my late wife. But, of course, the lupine is still with us (well, several different varieties of the lupine). Some seeds are incredibly indestructable. However, the above is a case of an EXTINCT plant being brought back not just from a seed but from only a piece of tissue. Fruit tissue WOULD NOT be the seed, but rather just the nourishing tissue surrounding the seed. Look forward to seeing what more they can do with this. Pieces of frozen mammoth have been recovered from glaciers for years. I remember several incidents when I was a kid.

Wow, that would be something. Reintroduce mammoths to Yellowstone. Talk about fence wreckers! Wouldn't the ranchers in Paradise Valley have a cow! Or any that crossed into their ranches.

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from vasportsman wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

It will never work with mammals, in addition to their habits, food, and climate being thousands of years old, so are their immune systems, one of the keys to evolutionary survival is the constant adaptation to pathogens which are also constantly evolving, if they do find a way to resurrect one of these animals it will not survive very long IMO.

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from bassman06 wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

The Dodo bird might be a good shot though, who knows? I'm not into cloning that much, if there's anything to be cloned, I'd rather see cloned limbs for veterans and organs that would be donated for people in need of it.

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from shadbuster wrote 13 weeks 1 day ago

Hope I can draw tags for the first woolly rhino hunt!

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