The world’s last mammoths, sequestered on an Arctic Ocean island outpost, had serious genetic defects caused by generations of inbreeding that might have hampered traits such as sense of smell and male fertility in the doomed population, scientists said on Friday.
The genome of one of the last mammoths from Wrangel Island off Siberia’s coast showed that the population was riddled with deleterious mutations, they said.
They resurrected genes from this mammoth in a laboratory to find clues about the demise of the species.
Most mammoths are said to have gone extinct roughly 10,000 years ago amid a warming climate and widespread human hunting, but isolated populations survived for thousands of years after that.
The Wrangel Island population was the last, disappearing roughly 4,000 years ago.
The researchers compared the Wrangel mammoth’s DNA to that of two older mammoths, as well three Asian elephants, a close relative.
They pinpointed a collection of genetic mutations in the Wrangel Island mammoth and synthesized these genes in the laboratory to test their functionality.
They found problems with genes responsible for sperm production, smell, neurological development and a function involving the hormone insulin that is responsible for permitting glucose in the blood to enter cells to give them energy.
“We can activate those genes in the lab using cell culture and test whether they are functional or not. In this case not,” said evolutionary biologist Vincent Lynch of the University at Buffalo in New York, who led the study published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
The sperm production-related mutations might have reduced fertility in an already shrinking population. The olfactory mutations might have harmed the ability to forage and to even smell the flowers that made up an important part of their diet.
“It is indeed a sad thing,” Lynch said. “Mammoths were literally huge and globally distributed, and this massive range was reduced to a tiny island in the Arctic Ocean before their extinction. It should be a warning about the consequences of climate change.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in