WHAT COULD BE - Mammoth find: Preserved Ice Age giant found with flowing blood in Siberia

From:  RT 

COMMENT - Over the last two centuries enough has been created and invested so that this, and not the ugliness of war, designed to feed the greed of a small number of conscienceless individuals should be the news which moves us.  

Imagine a world where we have the leisure for curiosity, learning, understanding the layerings of time and life.  See your self sharing the richness all around us as a wealth which takes nothing from anyone, but gives forward and around us, spilling out gifts which carry unending blessings.  

This mammoth died, leaving a legacy of knowledge for us today.  What must we do to achieve a world which appreciates this discovery's  potential?

ARTICLE 

AFP Photo / Museum of Mammoth of Institute of Applied Ecology of the North North-Eastern Federak University

Scientists say they have managed to find mammoth blood during the excavation of a grown female animal on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia. Russian scientists discovered a fully-grown female mammoth with blood and well-preserved muscle tissue trapped in ice in Siberia. The findings come amid debates on whether the extinct species should be resurrected using DNA.

The dark blood was found in ice cavities below the belly of the animal. When researchers broke the cavities with a poll pick, the blood came flowing out. The fact surprised them because the temperature was 10C below zero.

"It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

The blood was placed in a test tube and a bacteriological analysis of the sample is expected soon. 

The muscle tissue of the animal was also well-preserved and had a natural red color of fresh meat, added the scientist. Such preservation can be explained by the fact that the lower part of the mammoth’s body was trapped in pure ice, while the upper part was discovered in the middle of the tundra. The trunk was found separately from the carcass.

The researchers established that the female mammoth was between 50 and 60 years old when it died. Grigoriev noted that this was a unique find likely to prompt international intrigue.

The carcass of the baby mammoth, named Lyuba, found in 2007 / RIA Novosti

"We are the first in the world to find the carcass of an adult female mammoth. Now she, along with the bones and some ice, weighs about one ton. We assume that during life she weighed about three tons," he acknowledged. 

The head of the museum also suggested that the mammoth lived from 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. MORE