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Beautifully preserved cave bears emerge from Siberian permafrost
- legerdemain 6y agoNature is finally showing us some of her real treasures! There's no telling what wonders we will discover when all of this permafrost finally melts for good and mankind is able to access these inaccessible and rich terrains!
- jbay808 6y agoMoria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world. Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear. -- JRR Tolkien
- hutzlibu 6y agoAre you refering to the gigatons of CO2 frozen in the permafrost and about to be released with the melting? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/arctic-permafrost-is-thawing-it-could-speed-up-climate-change-feature/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/arcti...
- e40 6y agoOr perhaps ancient virus and bacteria stores. https://www.google.com/search?q=permafrost+bacteria&oq=permafrost+bacteria&aqs=chrome..69i57.5745j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=permafrost+bacteria&oq=perma...
- fractallyte 6y agoWomankind not included? ;-)
- fractallyte 6y agoAdmittedly nit-picking and out-of-context, but it's important, everywhere, every time: "Extensive research examined the implications of using the word "man" generically to refer to both males and females, as in the word "mankind", and it was found that it elicited mental imagery that tended to focus more on males than females. The conclusions were that the so-called "generic" senses ofthe word were subconsciously contaminated by the male sense of the word. The result: women were getting lost in our language." - Kerry A. Bodine, "C'mon Guys: This Way to a Study on Language and Sexism"
- meekrohprocess 6y agoThere's an H.P. Lovecraft story about that: At the Mountains of Madness. Although, back in his day they thought that Antarctica already had a giant inland sea. Jules Verne also wrote about the idea in some of his stories. It's hard to imagine these days, but there used to be parts of the earth's surface that nobody had ever surveyed in fairly contemporary times.
- nl 6y agoThe extinction of these bears reminds me that as recently as 1969 major publication in the US like Sports Illustrated were calling for the Grizzly Bear to be eradicated from national parks. https://vault.si.com/vault/43006 https://vault.si.com/vault/43006
- disown 6y agoWell at least it wasn't to commit genocide against the native americans. Baby steps. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buf... It's interesting how most of the national/state/sports team animals are extinct or verge of extinction. California bears to michigan wolverines to the american bald eagle.
- Maursault 6y agoDoes anyone know why cave bears and cave lions are named "cave" bears and "cave" lions? I refuse to believe entire species of megafauna lived in caves and that caves were somehow more plentiful in the distant past to be able to support the entirety of such large species. They should really come up with new and accurate descriptive names, or, at the very least, less inaccurate names.
- mikequinlan 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_bear The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) was a species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Both the word "cave" and the scientific name spelaeus are used because fossils of this species were mostly found in caves. This reflects the views of experts that cave bears may have spent more time in caves than the brown bear, which uses caves only for hibernation.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hutzlibu 6y ago"In fact, most cave bear fossils have been found inside caves, and paleontologists think these bears probably lived in the caves full-time, rather than just popping in for a quick four-month nap" Well, the article states different, but also to me this seems highly unlikely. Also because apparently this cave bear was not found in a cave.
- ComputerGuru 6y agoOr that’s where they were found because that’s the best-preserved place they sheltered in or went to die in. Especially for tigers: even domestic cats are known to search for a place to die alone and especially prefer cooler, darker places.
- selestify 6y agoWhat evolutionary pressures would’ve caused an animal to seek a particular place to die?
- blisterpeanuts 6y agoI wonder if we now have the technology to clone these beasts, given the huge trove of DNA. Tiresome bioethics arguments aside ("We probably can, but should we?"), it would be fascinating to witness a revival of Pleistocene fauna... maybe Neanderthals as well.
- abeppu 6y agoI think it's unclear whether the technology yet exists but it may not be far off -- and we could de-extinct ecosystems, not just single organisms, potentially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park#Animals_that_could_be_placed_in_the_park_if_revived_from_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park#Animals_that_... Some of the possibilities for animals that could plausibly be brought back are kinda wild. I'd love to see a living moa for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-extinction#Future_potential_candidates_and_their_proxy_for_de-extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-extinction#Future_potential...
- scns 6y agoYou can get a dog cloned in South Korea for ~80_000$
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoWhat would the expected profits of Pleistocene Park vs. the security risks look like.
- aksss 6y agoIt’ll be fine, totally fine. We’ll put the park on an island, that way it’s isolated, see? Walls, strict safety policies, emergency procedures. Also, they’re just ancient animals, they don’t have the advanced intelligence to outwit us.
- ugh123 6y agoAlso be sure to put the entire park's security and electrical system in the hands of a former postal worker.
- terrycody 6y agoLet me think about a movie: The thaw!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Breadmaker 6y agoZombears :)