
Siberia: 18,000-year-old frozen 'dog' stumps scientists - neom
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50586508
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brunoTbear
Calling 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.

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malkia
Somehow reminded me of Google's StatusOr C++ type :)

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a1369209993
That seems like a missed opportunity for a "ErrOr" pun.

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username90
ErrOr<string> even makes more sense than StatusOr<string>!

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throw0101a
Interview 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-i...](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)

* Transcript: [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.5375300/november-29-2019-episode-transcript-1.5377222)

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keyle
I have to say this is the most impressive preserved animal I've ever seen.
Looks like it died a few days ago at best.

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l33tman
You might be on to something, sir...

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jolmg
> Radiocarbon dating was able to determine the age of the puppy when it died
> and how long it has been frozen.

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djsumdog
I 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?

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frankharv
What blows me away is that are able to peel his lips back to display the
teeth. I don't understand how 18K year old flesh could still be pliable.

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Fnoord
Reminds 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]

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beagle3
I 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-c...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-
created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world)

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Fnoord
My 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."

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75dvtwin
They '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-s...](https://slate.com/technology/2012/03/domesticated-foxes-in-siberia-
an-experiment-in-peril.html)

~~~
saiya-jin
Hiding 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?

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75dvtwin
So.. I have to say, I think you are right.

I do eat meat. And I understand where it comes from.

I should not be judging hunters, live stock growers, or breeders culling
unsuccessful breeds, or wale hunters...

I guess part of me was thinking why could not they just relocate the other
foxes like 500 miles away and let them live. Russia (even without USSR) still
has like 11 time zones of land. It is enormous.

Perhaps, for a moment, I assumed that I had a know-how and was asked to be a
'moral authority', 'ethics luminary' and a re-born principles activist
(especially when it affects others, but not me)

I am probably not the only one who fell into that mind set, even momentarily.

But @saya-jin you are right,

there is nothing that indicated that animals were tortured, and I should not
have judged how they were 'culled'.

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CryptoPunk
I 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.

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iagovar
Isn't this dangerous in terms of virus and bacteria re-activation?

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kleer001
It would have to be a zoonotic pathogen and those tend to be rare.

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tempsolution
Why? The thing could just have trapped human hostile pathogens in its fur,
etc.

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kleer001
Viruses 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.

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david927
It would be amazing to clone it. I wonder if the DNA is preserved well enough
to do that.

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burtonator
About 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-...](https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-calculate-that-dna-
has-a-521-year-half-life/)

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.

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TheUndead96
It is insane how well preserved these remains are

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Abishek_Muthian
When 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)

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zokula
Huh? the Soviet Union did not exist in 1901.

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Abishek_Muthian
Thank you, my bad. They were Russian scientists from St. Petersburg.

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kresten
Has no-one seen The Thing?

Why are they even allowing it to exist?

Burn it.

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jaza
Doesn't look a day over 10,000.

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xwdv
Maybe the dog waited at the same spot everyday of his life for his owner to
return until it finally died from the cold.

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OnlineGladiator
I 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)

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kadoban
That 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)

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eucryphia
Siberia was warmer 18,000 years ago.

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jamisteven
This is clearly the unfound dog from the movie "Encino Man".

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pistoriusp
I wonder if that smells bad?

