Big in Japan: 37,000 year-old baby mammoth arrives in Japan

by Matthew Firestone on

This past Saturday, the frozen corpse of a baby mammoth arrived at Tokyo International Airport, just in time for the New Year’s festivities.

Discovered last May by a reindeer herder near the Yuribei River in northern Siberia’s remote Yamal-Nenets region, the six-month-old female mammoth calf had been encased in a layer of permafrost for 37,000 years.

According to Russian officials, the baby mammoth’s state of preservation is nothing less than remarkable.

The frozen mammoth’s trunk and eyes are entirely intact, and much of the body is still covered in fur. However, the tails and ears are missing, though there is evidence that they were apparently bitten off.

Alexei Tikhonov, the Russian Academy of Science’s Zoological Institute’s deputy director, has already stated on several occasions that the prospect of cloning the animal was unlikely.

Under freezing conditions, the whole cells required for cloning burst from invading ice crystals, though the DNA is kept nearly intact.

According to Mitsuyoshi Uno, an official with the joint Russo-Japanese mammoth-study project, this DNA will undoubtedly give us a better insight into phylogeny and physiology of these extinct wonders of nature.

After touching down in Japan, the mammoth was transferred to Tokyo’s Jikei Medical University, where it will undergo a computed tomography (CT) scan.

A CT scan is a groundbreaking diagnostic tool that allows scientists to get 3-D pictures of the body that is nearly as detailed as conducting an actual autopsy.

As a result, the goal of the research is to acquire detailed information about the animal’s organs and internal structure while simultaneously preserving the intact body.

So what exactly is a mammoth?

The word “mammoth” refers to any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, which were proboscideans (elephants or their extinct relatives) equipped with long curved tusks and covered in long hair.

Mammoths lived from the Pliocene epoch from 4.8 million years ago to around 4,500 years, which coincided with the end of the last Ice Age.

To date, a definitive explanation for their mass extinction is yet to be agreed upon, though there are three predominant competing theories.

One hypothesis is that the entire population was wiped out due to climate change, which is a scary proposition (to say the least) considering the precarious nature of our present situation (eg global warming, greenhouse gases, polar ice melting, etc.).

A second theory suggests that the entire population was wiped out due to infectious disease, which is also a scary proposition (to say the least) considering the precarious nature of our present situation (eg SARS, avian flu, HIV/AIDS, MRSA, etc).

Another theory was that mammoth populations were hunted to the brink of extinction by early human, who may have depended on them for food and clothing. Archaeologists have found butcher marks on several mammoth bones, and their remains are often found in association with early human camp sites.

Anyway, in case you’ve never seen a mammoth before (few of us have!), the frozen carcass and scan images will go on public display starting on January 4 at an office building in central Tokyo.

Trans-Siberian: Trading in experiences for luxury

by Neil Woodburn on

Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Trans-Siberian was up-scaled.

Back in the early 1990s when I traveled the legendary journey, it cost just $150 to travel nearly a quarter of the globe, from Moscow to Beijing. And I paid inflated tourist prices at the time.

Today, discerning travelers can opt for a $14,000, 19-day pampered adventure that is completely opposite of everything I experienced on my journey. The berths, for example, aren’t “sleeper” or even First Class. No, for $14,000 you get Gold Class, an entirely elevated level of comfort that includes “power showers and under floor heating…, state of the art DVD/CD player, LCD screens, audio system, individual air conditioning, recessed lighting and wardrobe space.”

Wow. I, on the other hand, shared a 4-person berth with Mongolians smuggling consumer items out of Russia. The bathroom was nothing more than a nasty toilet that was shared by the entire carriage and cleaned only once a day. And, the dining car had nothing but beef stroganoff for seven days straight.

While Gold Class certainly sounds inviting, all that money will never replicate the wonderful experience of sharing meals with my Mongolian bunkmates and listening to them drunkenly sing BeeGees songs out of tune.

That, folks, is priceless.

Photo contest: Russian style (that means watch out!)

by Jerry Guo on

There’s one Russian photo club whose pics are becoming a cult hit in some online circles. Here’s what they do. They issue directions for staging zany, bizarre, or sometimes actually frightful shots (see right), and their members go out and capture the scene. It’s kind of a cool concept, especially since they toy with conventional beliefs (and gravity). For instance:

  • “A Cheating Wife: You need to make a photo of a man, “a lover”, hanging outside the real window. The window should be not lower than a 3rd store of a multi-stored building.”
  • “The Pickles: Make a photo of many jars of pickles. Some of them should have pickled cell-phones. Not less than five cell phones in each jar please”
  • “The Waiter: A man dressed like a water should crawl out of a refuse chute in some multi-stored building, right from the disposal opening. He should hold a tray with some servings and a towel in another hand”

Could this catch on elsewhere? You guys have better ideas for staged shots?

Showering on the Trans-Siberian

by Neil Woodburn on

One of the longest stretches of time I’ve been without a shower was the seven days I spent on the Trans-Siberian traveling from Moscow to Beijing.

Although the train carriages were comfortable enough, each had only a single toilet, a horrible little sink, and absolutely no opportunity to shower–or so I thought.

Like most people on the Trans-Siberian, I slowly ripened over the course of the journey along with the three other passengers who shared my berth. But according to Vanessa Arrington writing for Lonely Planet, this simply wasn’t necessary.

The trick is to bring along a larger water bucket. Passengers can fill this with boiling water from the samovar, mix it with cold water from the bathroom sink and then toss it over their head while locked in the bathroom. The water will disappear through a hole in the floor and onto the tracks below.

While this seems a pretty decent idea, I see two immediate problems. Since there is only one bathroom, there will be some pretty angry people on the other side of the door waiting for shower time to finish. Worse, however, is that the bathrooms are very small and very dirty. I would not want to get naked in one of these things while the train is rocking back and forth. Ugh!

Let’s face it; if you can’t go that long without a shower, get off in Irkutsk or somewhere else along the line and lather up. Just don’t get back on board and turn up your nose at fellow passengers who aren’t going to smell as fresh and rosy as yourself.

Where on Earth, Week 37: Irkutsk, Russia

by Neil Woodburn on

We didn’t have anyone guess the exact city this week, however, Jeff came closest with a stab at St. Petersburg, Russia. This is the right country, but about five time zones off.

The above photo was taken of a legendary location–well, legendary if you’ve ever played the board game Risk. Irkutsk is one of those valuable territories that simply must be captured if you want to own Asia and win the game.

Irkutsk, however, is not a region, but rather a city of 600,000 located in the eastern part of Siberia. I found it to be a nice, peaceful city with some surprisingly richly decorated buildings stretching back to the 1880s when a local gold rush pumped money into the area and transformed Irkutsk into the “Paris of the East.”

The real joy of visiting these days, however, is the city’s close proximity to Lake Baikal, the deepest fresh water lake in the world. This may not sound too terribly exciting, but believe me, it is well worth the trip into the wonderland of Siberia to check out.