At the Yakut institute, scientists have begun work on the study of the carcass of a female mammoth, whose “meat is red, almost fresh”.
At the moment, researchers have already taken samples of the preserved blood composition with DNA isolation, which may be a breakthrough in the future. One of the main goals now facing scientists is the holistic cloning of the mammoth. And the Malolyakhovsky mammoth can help with this.
The main reason for such an amazing preservation of the mammoth's huge body was that it was previously frozen, that is, it had been lying in ice for several thousand years. Also, the study experts found that a female mammoth died from falling into a hole where there was ice and could not get out, enduring the pangs of cold for a long time. This historical fact has been proven by scientists thanks to conventional blood analysis.
The vice-president of the Association of Medical Anthropologists of the Russian Federation, Radik Khairullin, said that scientists had a chance to clone a mammoth found in Yakutia. Khairullin participates in the preparation of the soft tissues of this mammoth, YASIA reports.
The researchers managed to take samples of the preserved blood, where there is DNA, which makes it possible with a high degree of probability to clone a mammoth that lived 43 thousand years ago. According to experts, the samples have been perfectly preserved for such a long period of time. Scientists saw “vessels with a good wall, where there is hemolyzed blood. For the first time erythrocytes were found in them. Adipose tissue and muscle tissue are also well preserved. There are migrating cells of lymphoid tissue, which are well visualized, which is also unique,”said Victoria Egorova, head of the educational and scientific clinical and diagnostic laboratory of the Medical Clinic of the North-Eastern Federal University.
Photo: ysia.ru
As scientists noted, the reason for such a unique preservation of the mammoth carcass can be both the microbial component of the ancient animal's organism itself, and the cold. In addition, there is an assumption that mammoth blood may have some kind of cryoprotective properties that allow it to survive cold down to minus 60 degrees Celsius.
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A blood test of the mammoth revealed that the animal died an unnatural death. According to scientists, the female mammoth fell into an ice hole, from where she could not get out.
“Scientists are just happy. Preserved blood vessels full of blood, the contents of the gastrointestinal tract, - said the director of the laboratory of the Peter Lazarev Mammoth Museum Semyon Grigoriev. According to him, today, for the first time in the world, a mammoth trunk is being dissected, in which soft tissues have been preserved.
The research results will be announced at the VI seminar on mammoth fauna, which will be held in May in Greece.
