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Siberia: 18,000-year-old frozen 'dog' stumps scientists
- Fnoord 7y agoReminds me of that forbidden experiment in Siberian Soviet Russia concerning breeding. What they were trying to do is breed a dog based on wolves. All they were doing to achieve that, was choosing the most friendliest wolves. Lo and behold, after a few generations they succeeded already. Selective breeding is a form of genetic modification in itself. Which is a reason to not be (at least pur sang) against gentech / genetic modification. Knowingly or not, we've already been doing it for ages. [EDIT]Foxes indeed; not wolves.[/EDIT]
- beagle3 7y agoI know of the tame silver fox experiment[0] (not wolf), and it wasn't forbidden. Are you referring to a different one? [0] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-c...
- Fnoord 7y agoMy bad, it was a fox experiment, indeed. Regarding "banned", the article mentions: > The study of genetics had been essentially banned in the USSR, as the country's dictator Joseph Stalin sought to discredit the genetic principles set out by Gregor Mendel. Stalin's death in 1953 gave scientists more freedom, but in the early years Belyaev nevertheless worked under the cover that he was breeding foxes to make better fur coats. Also, it mentions 50 generations: > "The fox farm experiment was crucial, in that it told us that domestication can happen relatively quickly in the right circumstances," he says. "The fact that in fifty generations, they were wagging their tails and barking, this is really incredible."
- lowdose 7y agoMakes me wonder if we could do the same with a tiger.
- weberc2 7y agoIIRC (from some documentary on the subject) canids are somewhat unique in their “genetic plasticity” (I don’t recall the precise term).
- democracy 7y agoEven more: Stalin hated generic scientists so much that named a town after one of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michurinsk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michurinsk
- Grue3 7y agoMichurin's work was appropriated by the antiscientific ideology of Lysenkoism which Stalin favored. Also there are lots of places named after Michurin, for example there are multiple neighborhoods named "Michurin's gardens" in the city I'm from.
- 75dvtwin 7y agoThey 'culled' (which means killed) the animals that were not tame enough. And continued doing it for 40 years, it seems. this is a kind of experiment I would have prohibited totally. "... Only those foxes that showed tolerance for the nearness of people were selected and bred to produce the next generation, while fearful or aggressive animals were culled. ..." https://slate.com/technology/2012/03/domesticated-foxes-in-siberia-an-experiment-in-peril.html https://slate.com/technology/2012/03/domesticated-foxes-in-s...
- Fnoord 7y agoThank you for mentioning that. I got part of this story from a Dutch book "De meeste mensen deugen" by Rutger Bergman. > this is a kind of experiment I would have prohibited totally. You mean it'd be prohibited or that you'd prohibit it? What we do hourly to the population of chicken and cow is much more violent and genocidal than the culling you mention. It serves no scientific purpose either; only because 1) we've grown accustomed to eating so much meat 2) there are so many humans on Earth.
- mkl 7y agoNot exactly. They bred an aggressive population alongside the tame one, and it's now 60 years: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/fox-dogs-wild-tame-genetics-study-news/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/fox-dogs-... "Researchers have bred more than 40 generations of friendly and aggressive foxes." I read a really interesting article mainly about the aggressive ones, but I just spent a few minutes looking for it unsuccessfully.
- saiya-jin 7y agoHiding the research as breeding 'better' foxes for fur is fine with you? That's what those culled have been used for. Now we can discuss whether such an approach is immoral on its own, but we should probably get off our high modern horses and judge things from perspective of given era. And breeding animals for fur was totally acceptable. In fact, it still is in all countries on earth and for some time will be. Btw are you vegan to have at least some grounds to claim any moral superiority to that research?
- badrabbit 7y agoYes...naturally breed them and let genes modify in accordance of naturality. It is intellectually dishonest to compare that with an educated guessing game of modifying select genes and hoping it turns out OK. The very obvious difference being humans selected which genes to modify with gene editing while selective breeding allowed the reproductive process to select which combination of genes are passed and which are not. The obvious ethical objection is that human error can happen with gene editing and is intolerable while selective breeding allows for the reproductive system to make errors which are not a responsibility of man but of nature. Ethical slippery sloping to justify ends sucks!
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago> The obvious ethical objection is that human error can happen with gene editing and is intolerable while selective breeding allows for the reproductive system to make errors which are not a responsibility of man but of nature. It seems like you're saying, either way you can get errors, but if you do it through breeding you can claim it wasn't your fault because, really, Nature did it. I can't tell if you're serious or not.
- perl4ever 7y agoI don't know how accurate it is, but I remember reading that (the first time was a very long time ago) some varieties of plants/crops were developed through literally bombarding them with radiation and then breeding the mutants that were improved, and the results are not considered to be GMOs, because nobody was manipulating specific genes. They were just basically firing a shotgun at them.
- riffraff 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening EDIT: you may be thinking of this article specifically http://www.ediblegeography.com/strange-and-beautiful-seeds-from-the-atom/ http://www.ediblegeography.com/strange-and-beautiful-seeds-f... > For example, a mutagenic Ruby Red grapefruit grown without the use of pesticides can be labeled as organic and thus be sold for a premium, despite the fact that organic foods by definition cannot be genetically modified.
- sorenjan 7y agoThe most interesting thing about that experiment IMO is that as the foxes got friendlier towards humans, they looked more like puppies even as adults. If I remember correctly this is because the trait of trusting strangers is associated with being infantile, so when selectively breeding for that trait you get the puppy like looks too. So not only are they nicer, they're also cuter.
- z3t4 7y agoI wonder if it got more difficult to kill them for the furs when they got cuter, more friendly and loving.
- sundarurfriend 7y ago> pur sang \ (ˈ)pu̇(ə)r¦säⁿ\ : being such beyond a doubt or to the utmost degree Etymology: French pur-sang thoroughbred animal, from pur pure + sang blood, from Latin sanguis (from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pur%20sang https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pur%20sang )
- MrsPeaches 7y agoDid they not also breed an aggressive line as well? Anyone know what happened to them?
- GarvielLoken 7y agoOf course we need selective breeding. How else are we going to achieve the golden path?
- peter303 7y agoWe have been breeding housecats for 3,000 years and they arent as friendly as dogs or foxes yet.
- djsumdog 7y agoI wonder what preservation will be from this point out. I'm sure they'll take tons of photos, videos and fur samples they'll preserve, but can they keep this specimen in tact? Are there ways to preserve it with the fur and whiskers and maybe even keep it on display as it is, or will it need to be taxidermeried? Edit: also those teeth! Do any other types of wolves/dogs have that crazy pattern?
- ptaipale 7y agoThe teeth don't look particularly strange to me. Some modern dogs have teeth that look the same. Just duckduckgo "dog teeth" images.
- carrozo 7y agoOnce they do tests wouldn’t best option be to refreeze? What a display case too!
- pvg 7y agoI don't know what's going to happen with this particular find but if you click through to the pages of various frozen mammoths here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth#Frozen_specimens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth#Frozen_specimen... you'll see everything from 'dunked in preservative and exhibited' to 'excavated as a giant chunk of permafrost and stashed in an ice cave'. The former seems more typical. Going all out, there's also this - a special facility to keep the specimen cold and, uh, moist it seems? http://www.iceman.it/en/the-mummy/ http://www.iceman.it/en/the-mummy/
- CWarner818 7y agoEven modern puppies have those small multiple ridges on their teeth. It's one of the most reliable indicators of a dogs age, as they tend to disappear as the dogs mature.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoTypical carnivore incisors I think - check out lions, tigers and other cats as well as dogs. Much, much sharper than ours, ideal for scraping meat off bone. Pre-molars are much more complex and meat specialised than ours too.
- brunoTbear 7y agoCalling it "Dogor" as both meaning Friend in a local language and a play on "dog or wolf" is the kind of word play humor we deserve.
- malkia 7y agoSomehow reminded me of Google's StatusOr C++ type :)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- a1369209993 7y agoThat seems like a missed opportunity for a "ErrOr" pun.
- username90 7y agoErrOr<string> even makes more sense than StatusOr<string>!
- malkia 7y agoHa! :) Nice...
- nevster 7y agoMade me think of Trogdor - "Trog-o-dor"
- keyle 7y agoI have to say this is the most impressive preserved animal I've ever seen. Looks like it died a few days ago at best.
- l33tman 7y agoYou might be on to something, sir...
- jolmg 7y ago> Radiocarbon dating was able to determine the age of the puppy when it died and how long it has been frozen.
- jayalpha 7y agoCheck out this little doggy: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-giant-severed-wolf-head-from-40-000-years-ago-has-been-unearthed-in-siberia https://www.sciencealert.com/a-giant-severed-wolf-head-from-...
- l33tman 7y agoThe Thing...
- david927 7y agoIt would be amazing to clone it. I wonder if the DNA is preserved well enough to do that.
- bitL 7y agoIt should be, but it might not work with contemporary RNA in host cells for cloning.
- burtonator 7y agoAbout 3-4 years ago there was a study showing that the half-life of DNA was much shorter... like around 500 years. https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-calculate-that-dna-has-a-521-year-half-life/ https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-calculate-that-dna-has-... However, I've always wondered if it would be possible to reassemble the whole DNA via aligning overlapping segments by indexing MASSIVE amounts of DNA. IT would be VERY expensive to do now with today's tech but might be posssible in 10-20 years.
- peter303 7y agoThey have dozens of Neanderthal DNA going back to 70K years. (They stopped being a distinct sub-species 30K years ago) In humans the skull next to the ear are good place to find intact DNA.
- pistoriusp 7y agoI wonder if that smells bad?
- vnxli 7y agoThere is no debate, however, about whether or not he was a good boy. The scientists were immediately able to determine that he was
- jdnenej 7y agoHas HN become Reddit now?
- iagovar 7y agoIsn't this dangerous in terms of virus and bacteria re-activation?
- kleer001 7y agoIt would have to be a zoonotic pathogen and those tend to be rare.
- tempsolution 7y agoWhy? The thing could just have trapped human hostile pathogens in its fur, etc.
- kleer001 7y agoViruses and bacteria tend to be super specialized for their hosts temperature, humidity, and cellular ranges and die soon after being abandoned into the cold uncaring world. Except for when they're in bio-films. Then, recent research suggests, they can live for much longer. Fungal spores, however, can live forever even in deep space. Valley fever, caused by Coccidioides immitis is a danger to Archeologists (and ATV enthusiasts) as it lives in the soil and if its spores are breathed in it can cause some symptoms. So, there's some danger, but not much. And the people doing this work will likely know the details.
- Bayart 7y agoWe've probably already caught everything that can be caught from dogs a long time ago.
- senectus1 7y agoYou dont think that our immunities may have evolved along with the evolution of the dog bacteria? Evolution doesn't just mean improvements, it also means dropping that's that dont appear to be useful anymore. If a 20k year old bacteria suddenly starts showing up and we're no longer equipped to deal with them like we used to be...
- throw0101a 7y agoInterview with one of the professors in evolutionary genetics involved: > Dalén was working in Russia in 2018 when he got a call that local tusk hunters — people searching for mammoth tusk — had found the specimen near Yakutsk in eastern Siberia. * https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/scientists-don-t-know-if-this-18-000-year-old-frozen-puppy-is-a-wolf-or-a-dog-1.5375610 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/scientists-don-t-know-i... * Transcript: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.5375300/november-29-2019-episode-transcript-1.5377222 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday...
- xwdv 7y agoMaybe the dog waited at the same spot everyday of his life for his owner to return until it finally died from the cold.
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoI realize this is a well known reference, but for anybody that wants to cry today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrVR-01w-4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrVR-01w-4w
- kadoban 7y agoThat part of that episode is actually a reference itself, to Hachiko https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D
- jaza 7y agoDoesn't look a day over 10,000.
- eucryphia 7y agoSiberia was warmer 18,000 years ago.
- TheUndead96 7y agoIt is insane how well preserved these remains are
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoWhen in 1901 Soviet researchers discovered woolly mammoth on the banks of Berezovka River in Siberia, they could smell its carcass and supposedly scavengers had been feeding on thousands of years old meat![1] [1]https://youtu.be/fr0Ifw8TJVw https://youtu.be/fr0Ifw8TJVw
- sedatk 7y agoThat would be some dry aged steak.
- zokula 7y agoHuh? the Soviet Union did not exist in 1901.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoThank you, my bad. They were Russian scientists from St. Petersburg.
- cmrdporcupine 7y agoThere are apparently multiple occasions when preserved mammoth flesh from the ice age was eaten: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57100/time-250000-year-old-mammoth-was-served-dinner https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57100/time-250000-year-o...
- CryptoPunk 7y agoI wonder why Homo Erectuses and especially Neanderthals never domesticated wolves. They co-existed with wolves for hundreds of thousands of years and were social hominids that were, judging by their brain size, technology and culture, quite intelligent. EDIT: apparently there's some evidence of wolf domestication stretching back hundreds of thousands of years.
- kresten 7y agoHas no-one seen The Thing? Why are they even allowing it to exist? Burn it.
- jamisteven 7y agoThis is clearly the unfound dog from the movie "Encino Man".