Scientists trying to clone a now-extinct cave lion of the Ice Age

Remains of a pair of cave lion cubs had been discovered in Russia's Sakha Republic last August and scientists are now trying to clone them and create an Ice Age cave lion that is today extinct. The scientists are attempting to find DNA in the remains of these lion cubs in order to clone the extinct animal.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 4 March 2016.

The remains were in a state of near-perfect preservation because of the deep-freeze conditions of the permafrost where they lay. That has set scientists on the path to find living tissues containing DNA in the remains. If that is found, it will allow them to recreate the now extinct species.
The project has been undertaken as a joint venture by Russian and South Korean scientists at the Joint Foundation of Molecular Paleontology at North East Russia University in the city of Yakutsk which is home to a mammoth museum. Incidentally, one of the scientists Semyon Grigoriev, who is involved in the lion cub project, is also working on cloning a mammoth using the same process.
It has been decided that while the first Ice Age cave lion cub will be used for the cloning attempt, the second will be preserved in the Mammoth Museum's collection.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Research has revealed that carbon released by the Oceans ended the Ice Age

#globalwarming #iceage #plankton #carbondioxide #antarctica A study carried out by the Southampton University has concluded that carbon dioxide released from the depths of the oceans brought to an end the last Ice Age. As per the study reported in bbc.com dated 12 February 2015, such release of carbon dioxide gradually drove the shift towards a warmer period.
The research has been published in the magazine Nature and the conclusions are based on analysis of chemical signals in the shells of ancient plankton. The oceans absorb nearly one third of the atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Therefore, in the opinion of the scientists, as the oceans get warmer, their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide will be reduced. The result will be faster global warming.
Dr Miguel Martinez-Boti was the co-leader of the study and he has said that the findings indicated that there was a link between very high concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide in parts of the ocean and rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide at the end of the last Ice Age.
The methodology adopted was simple enough – the research is based on analysis of ancient marine organisms that lived on the surface of the oceans thousands of years ago. In this case, the acidity of the seawater they inhabited can be calculated from the chemical signature left in their shells. This allows the amount of carbon dioxide in the water to be calculated.
Incidentally, the waters around Antarctica (or the Southern Ocean) are believed to play a key role in the movement of carbon between the atmosphere, land and sea.