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Woolly mammoths are coming back, say cloning scientists In what sounds like it could be the plot for the next Jurassic Park movie, a team of scientists in Siberia says there's a 'high chance' that they will be able to clone a woolly mammoth. The breakthrough comes as a result of last year's discovery of an incredibly well-preserved mammoth carcass, frozen in the permafrost of Siberia's Malolyakhovskiy island. The scientists estimate that the animal is about 43,000 years old, and was 50-60 years old when it died in distress after getting stuck in the ice. In the ten months since...

Scientists Have Found An Ancient Fossilized Mosquito Full Of Blood Jennifer Welsh Oct. 14, 2013, 5:37 PMBlood engorged mosquito Researchers have just published an exciting find: a 46-million-year-old mosquito full of blood. Next stop "Jurassic Park"? Not so fast. The find is really interesting because it's the first example of blood-feeding in these ancient insects. We hadn't had clear evidence of when this began until now. They found the mosquito in shale sediments in Montana. They first found the presence of iron in the female mosquito's belly, then used a non-destructive technique to study the molecules inside the find. They...

Bloody Mosquito Fossil Supports Recent Creation by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Scientists recently found blood remnants in a mosquito fossil trapped in a supposed 46-million-year-old rock.1 Could blood really last that long? Publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers reported that they detected iron three times inside the fossil mosquito's abdomen, which strongly suggests the presence of still-fresh hemoglobin. They also confirmed the presence of heme groups (vitamin-like porphyrin molecules found in hemoglobin) only inside the abdomen, where living female mosquitos store the blood from their meals. The study authors wrote, "The combination of...

The world has been without passenger pigeons since 1914. Now, scientists want to bring them back. Geneticist Ben Novak has embarked on the project and has begun collecting passenger pigeon DNA from natural history museums. His “de-extinction” efforts are not without critics. … Novak, a researcher with the Long Now Foundation, a California think tank, wants to give the species a second chance. At the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley, Novak used a scalpel to slice small tissue samples from the red-painted toes of the passenger pigeons kept there. He hopes to isolate tiny bits of DNA from the...

Teenager astounds scientists by building a DNA testing machine in his bedroom - and he did it to discover why his brother is ginger Fred Turner, 17, from Yorkshire built a DNA testing machine in his bedroomBuilt the polymerase chain reaction machine from items he found at homeWanted to see if his brother had the mutated gene that causes ginger hairExperiment was a success and proved why his brother is ginger and he isn'tFred was named the UK's Young Engineer of the Year for his design A teenager has astounded scientists by building a DNA testing machine in his bedroom...

Biologists briefly brought the extinct Pyrenean ibex back to life in 2003 by creating a clone from a frozen tissue sample harvested before the goat's entire population vanished in 2000. The clone survived just seven minutes after birth, but it gave scientists hope that "de-extinction," once a pipedream, could become a reality. Ten years later, a group of researchers and conservationists gathered in Washington, D.C., today (March 15) for a forum called TEDxDeExtinction, hosted by the National Geographic Society, to talk about how to revive extinct animals, from the Tasmanian tiger and the saber-toothed tiger to the woolly mammoth and...

I’ve heard of high schools and colleges cancelling graduation speakers because they were too controversial, too liberal or too religious, but this is the first time I’ve heard of one being cancelled for being too conservative. Ronan High School in Ronan, Montana, had arranged for famed and award winning film producer Gerald Molen, a Montana native to speak at their graduation ceremony. Molen is best known for his Oscar winning film, Schindler’s List. He also produced Twister, Rain Man, Days of Thunder, Hook, Minority Report, Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Before becoming a film producer, Molen served...

What did Velociraptor have for dinner? Raptor skeleton discovered with bones in its gut If you lie awake at night wondering Velociraptor's favorite food was (and whether it tastes much like human flesh), you're in luck. For the first time, a Velociraptor skeleton has been observed with its last supper still filling its guts, and this little guy feasted on long-dead pterosaur. Paleontologist David Hone has published a new paper describing his findings in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, but for those who don't want to breach the paywall, he's also explaining them on his blog. This especially well preserved specimen was...

An Absurdly Cool Behind-The-Scenes Look At The Jurassic Park Dinosaur Puppets The late great Stan Winston was one of the undisputed masters of cinematic effects. With his team of make-up artists and puppeteers, Winston gave such films as Aliens and Predator an otherworldly sheen that's been seared into the collective memory of moviegoers for decades. And on the Stan Winston School's YouTube account, there are tons of behind-the-scenes reels of the dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park films. Behold amazing footage of the velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus hanging out casually with their human puppet masters.

We may not be able to restore any measurable level of confidence in the American economy, but gosh darn it, we might just be able to restore the wooly mammoth. Scientists, having solved all the other ills facing humanity, may be on the verge of making Steven Spielberg’s vision come true, according to CBS news. The very definition of extinct means forever, but what if that didn’t have to be? As Lesley Stahl reported in early 2010, scientists are making remarkable advances that are bringing us closer than ever before to the possibility of a true animal resurrection.Who wouldn’t be...

Georgia-based musician Birdfeeder decided to slow down composer John Williams‘ Jurassic Park theme song eighteen times, which surprisingly resulted in a beautiful hour-long ambient symphony which you must hear for yourself. Listen now embedded after the jump.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. When the time came for chemical ecologist Walter Leal to test whether humans make a natural odor that attracts mosquitoes, Leal himself was the first to volunteer. "I measured my own levels," Leal said. "I thought I would set a good example. If you do it first, then others won't be scared." In truth, there was little if any reason to be frightened. The scientists were looking only for the substance itself, not trying to find out whether the compound would lure the insects...

After years spent hunting for the buried remains of prehistoric animals, a Canadian paleontologist now plans to manipulate chicken embryos to show he can create a dinosaur. Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University, said he aims to develop dinosaur traits that disappeared millions of years ago in birds. Larsson believes by flipping certain genetic levers during a chicken embryo's development, he can reproduce the dinosaur anatomy, he told AFP in an interview. Though still in its infancy, the research could eventually lead to hatching live prehistoric animals, but Larsson said there are no...

Can We Really Reverse-Engineer a Dinosaur? by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D., and Brian Thomas, M.S.* A recent TV show has proposed the possibility that dinosaurs may walk the earth again someday as a result of man’s ingenuity. Dinosaurs: Return to Life, which aired on the Discovery Channel,[1] included commentary from renowned dinosaur paleontologist Jack Horner and an assortment of molecular biologists who are studying bird development. Combined with the recent release of Horner’s book How to Build a Dinosaur, an interest has been sparked in the possible development of some type of “Jurassic Park” scenario in which a dinosaur-like creature could...

If you’re a writer struggling to put together a screenplay, but it’s a big mess and you don’t know where to begin, this is the post for you. I’m going to explain the easiest way I know how to bring structure to your screenplay and solve the problems you’re having. In my last post, I suggested that “doing the right thing is worth the struggle” is a common inspirational message found in many of the most stirring Hollywood movies. However, each individual film has it’s own particular moral theme that it wants to get across to the audience. And it’s...

RUSH: What a sad state journalism must have to be in. We know it is, but it was on display last night, the sad state of journalism. You know it's bad when they have to drag Tom Brokaw out of Jurassic Park to moderate the debate. What happened to Brian Williams? What happened to Charlie Gibson? What happened to Katie Couric? Why go to Jurassic Park? Folks, I am sitting here, all I can do today is laugh. I've been having so much fun getting ready for today's show and I'm going to share it with you, greetings, great to...

Deep inside the dusty university store room, three scientists struggle to lift a huge fossilised bone. It is from the leg of a dinosaur. For many years, this chunky specimen has languished cryptically on a shelf. Interesting but useless — a forgotten relic of a lost age. Now, with hammer and chisel poised, the academics from Montana State University in America gather round. They are about to shatter this rare vestige of the past. Why would they do such a thing? Dinosaurs from When Dinosaurs Roamed Lost age: Scientists now believe it is possible to resurrect the dinosaur after the...

Insect Attack May Have Finished Off Dinosaurs ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2008) — Asteroid impacts or massive volcanic flows might have occurred around the time dinosaurs became extinct, but a new argument is that the mightiest creatures the world has ever known may have been brought down by a tiny, much less dramatic force -- biting, disease-carrying insects.Tick found in Burmese amber. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University) An important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs, experts say, could have been the rise and evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers. And the evidence...

If you are Recreatational Reader; I'd like to recomend a Novel. It was a best seller in '04. I found it just weeks ago. "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. It attacks the "Global Warming" belief system. He wrote "Jurassic Park" & "Andromeda Strain"; among other Best Sellers. This is his longest, BEST and Most important work.

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A Mexican researcher announced the rare find of a tiny tree frog completely preserved in amber on Wednesday that he estimates lived about 25 million years ago. The chunk of amber containing the 0.4-inch frog was uncovered by a miner in southern Chiapas states in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study. Only a few preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber - a stone formed by ancient tree sap - mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas was of the...