Mammoth fragments from Siberia raise cloning hopes

Mammoth fragments from Siberia raise cloning hopes — Scientists have discovered well-preserved frozen woolly mammoth fragments deep in Siberia that may contain living cells, edging a tad closer to the "Jurassic Park" possibility of cloning a prehistoric animal, the mission's organizer said Tuesday.

Russia's North-Eastern Federal University said an international team of researchers had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and bone marrow some 328 feet (100 meters) underground during a summer expedition in the northeastern province of Yakutia.

FILE - In this June 28, 2008 file photo a sculpture of mammoths is seen in the Siberian town of Khanty-Mansiisk, 2000 kilometers (1250 miles) east of Moscow, Russia. A Russian university said Tuesday that an international team of scientists have discovered well-preserved frozen woolly mammoth fragments deep in Siberia that may contain living cells, edging a step closer to the possibility of cloning the prehistoric animal. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky,File)

Expedition chief Semyon Grigoryev said Korean scientists with the team had set a goal of finding living cells in the hope of cloning a mammoth. Scientists have previously found bones and fragments but not living cells.

Grigoryev told the online newspaper Vzglyad it would take months of research to determine whether they have indeed found the cells.

"Only after thorough laboratory research will it be known whether these are living cells or not," he said, adding that would take until the end of the year at the earliest.

Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago, although scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia's Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.

Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost. Some believe it's possible to recreate the prehistoric animal if they find living cells in the permafrost.

Those who succeed in recreating an extinct animal could claim a "Jurassic Park prize," the concept of which is being developed by the X Prize Foundation that awarded a 2004 prize for the first private spacecraft. ( Associated Press )

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Dinosaurs Became Extinct in Single Blow, Fossil Suggests

Dinosaurs Became Extinct in Single Blow, Fossil Suggests - A dinosaur horn is now pointing to a catastrophic end for the Age of Dinosaurs, not a gradual one as some researchers have claimed.

The leading culprit for the end of the Age of Dinosaurs is a catastrophic meteor strike about 65 million years ago. Although it is now widely accepted that a cosmic impact took place about then — a time known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T boundary — it was unclear if the mass extinctions started gradually before the hit, perhaps due to volcanoes or other factors.

Helping drive this controversy was a zone spanning 10 feet (3 meters) wide in the earth right below the K-T boundary that purportedly lacked dinosaur fossils. A number of scientists have claimed this gap, seen in the western interior of North America, was evidence that dinosaurs might have died off well before any impact. Other researchers have contested the notion, suggesting this layer only appeared devoid of fossils because fossils can get easily destroyed over millions of years. Also, the placement of the K-T boundary can be uncertain, meaning that dinosaurs might have actually been found in this zone before but not reported as such.

Now scientists have discovered a fossil in this supposedly barren zone — a dinosaur horn no more than 5 inches (13 centimeters) below the impact layer, making it the specimen closest to the end of the Age of Dinosaurs found yet. The horn, nearly 18 inches (45 cm) long, most likely belonged to a Triceratops, the most common dinosaur in the layer of rock in which it was found last year, called the Hell Creek Formation of southeastern Montana.

Just because "we have one dinosaur in the gap doesn't necessarily falsify the idea that dinosaurs were gradually declining in numbers," researcher Tyler Lyson, a vertebrate paleontologist at Yale University, told LiveScience. "However, this find indicates that at least some dinosaurs were doing fine right up to the K-T boundary."

"We need to do more field work to find more dinosaurs within the 3-meter gap," Lyson said. "I'm confident that with more field work, we will find more dinosaurs within this interval." ( LiveScience.com )

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How Tough Turtles Survived Dino-Killing Meteor

How Tough Turtles Survived Dino-Killing Meteor - What does it take to survive a catastrophic meteor impact? The tough turtles of the Cretaceous know a bit about that; they seem to have survived the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs because of their slow metabolisms and aquatic lifestyles, researchers now say.

"Turtles are very tough animals, if times get tough they can go into a state of animation," said study researcher Tyler Lyson, of Yale University. "Animals that were living in the water were kind of protected against whatever killed the land plants and the dinosaurs."

Essentially, since their bodily processes were so slow, needing very little energy, they could survive on sparse resources during and after the wipeout of dinosaurs.

The conclusion is based on a newly discovered turtle fossil from North Dakota, which dates back to between 60 million and 65 million years ago. The specimen belongs to a turtle species thought to have survived global extinction, Lyson said, because fossils of the same species have been found in rocks deposited up to 75 million years ago.

Tough turtles

The global extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, called the K-T boundary due to its special signature in rock layers, was most likely set off by a meteorite strike, though the true sequence of events is hotly debated. Some researchers believe a set of world-shattering volcanic eruptions darkened the sky, which may or may not have been caused by the meteor.

The turtles, along with other burrowing and water-living animals, survived the dinosaur-killing whole-Earth extinction event, which extinguished 90 percent of the animal and plant species living on land, including land-living turtles.

"If you only looked at turtles across this boundary you wouldn't think there was an extinction," Lyson told LiveScience. "Small animals that have a slow metabolism and live in the water do very well across the K-T boundary."

These turtles lived in lakes and streams in North America, where they ate soft plants and crustaceans. They would have resembled the painted or cooter turtles of today, Lyson said, though they aren't closely related to any living turtle species. They were part of a very large group of species called the baenid turtles, at least eight of which survived the extinction event only to vanish later by some other means.

Extinction after-party

After the land-based wipeout, the remaining small mammals populating the Earth spread in what's called "adaptive radiation," where a limited number of species fans out and diversifies in empty habitats. The living mammals underwent rapid evolution and spread into the niches vacated by other animals, including the dinosaurs.

Even though turtles had the metabolic upper hand to survive the extinction event, the mammals beat out these tough turtles in the race to repopulate land.

"In the water, before and after the boundary, it was business as usual. A lot of these smaller species are around right after the impact. Not a whole lot changed," Lyson said. "Mammals just have more of a rapid turnover, so they are able to more quickly adapt to their environment and their changing surroundings."

But this story of survival has a sad ending. After enduring more than 85 million years on Earth, the baenid turtles ultimately died out around 40 million years ago, probably when North America hit a dry spell during the late Eocene Epoch. ( LiveScience.com )

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Rare dinosaur found in Canada's oil sands

Rare dinosaur found in Canada's oil sands – The Canadian oil sands, a vast expanse of tar and sand being mined for crude oil, yielded treasure of another kind this week when an oil company worker unearthed a 110-million-year-old dinosaur fossil that wasn't supposed to be there.

The fossil is an ankylosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur with powerful limbs, armor plating and a club-like tail. Finding it in this region of northern Alberta was a surprise because millions of years ago the area was covered by water.

110-million-year-old dinosaur fossil - The 110-million-year-old dinosaur fossil found in Canada's oil sands this week

"We've never found a dinosaur in this location," Donald Henderson, a curator at Alberta's Royal Tyrrell Museum, which is devoted to dinosaurs, said on Friday. "Because the area was once a sea, most finds are invertebrates such as clams and ammonites."

The ankylosaur that was found by the oil worker is expected to be about 5 meters (16-1/2 feet) long and 2 meters (6-1/2 feet) wide.

"It is pretty amazing that it survived in such good condition," said Henderson, noting the fossil was three dimensional, not flattened by the heavy rock sediment.

"It is also the earliest complete dinosaur that we have from this province."

The fossil was found on Wednesday by a Suncor Energy shovel operator who was clearing ground ahead of development. By a quirk of fate, the worker had visited the Royal Tyrrell dinosaur museum in southern Alberta just the week before.

Henderson suggested he may have had dinosaurs on the brain. "Maybe his mind was subconsciously prepared."

Suncor has suspended work at the site and has given scientists a three-week window to remove the fossil and ship it to the Royal Tyrrell museum.

The last major fossil find in northern Alberta was a giant reptile called an ichthyosaur, which was found 10 years ago near Fort McMurray. ( Reuters )

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