I chose this story because I feel like recently the news has been overcome by volcanoes, floods, oil spills, and earthquakes. No one really ever hears about really cool mammoths with anti-freeze blood anymore.
Apparently wooly mammoths used more than their thick fur to stay warm in the ice age and it's cold arctic winters. Recently scientists have discovered that mammoths had a genetic adaptation in their blood allowing their haemoglobin to release oxygen into their bodies at extremely low temperatures. In this way their blood was similar to anti-freeze! This adaptation probably helped them keep their oxygen moving which kept helped them concentrate their heat internally and stop heat loss. They discovered this by extracting a DNA sample from the remains of a 43,000 year old wooly mammoth. The converted the DNA into RNA and then put it in e. coli bacteria which helped produce the mammoth protein of the 43,000 year old specimen. If they didn't have this adaptation they would have to eat a lot more, much more often so that they could get their energy from food. This would have posed a large problem in the winter when there wasn't a large food supply. This adaptation for mammoths was dealt to deal with the cold just as their elephant relatives adapted to the African heat by having large ears and no thick coat of fur.
-Katie Powell
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8657464.stm
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