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More information on MA365 — perhaps with information on crew selection — should come in August, when members of the Phase 1 crew issue a report at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention

Russian scientists claimed

they have discovered blood in the carcass of a woolly mammoth

An expedition led by Russian scientists earlier this month uncovered the well-preserved carcass of a female mammoth on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean

the head of the expedition, said the animal died at the age of around 60 some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago

it was the first time that an old female had been found.

what was

surprising was that the carcass was so well preserved that it still had blood and muscle tissue.

broke the ice beneath her stomach, the blood flowed out from there, it was very dark

the muscle tissue is also red, the colour of fresh meat

the lower part of the carcass was very well preserved as it ended up in a pool of water that later froze over. The upper part of the body including the back and the head are believed to have been eaten by predators

The discovery

gives new hope to researchers in their quest to bring the woolly mammoth back to life.

gives

a really good chance of finding live cells which can help

clone a mammoth

Previous mammoths have not had such well-preserved tissue

Last year,

signed a deal with cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, who in 2005 created the world's first cloned dog.

mammoth specialists from South Korea, Russia and the United States are expected to study the remains which the Russian scientists are now keeping at an undisclosed northern location

one-carbon organics that were detected by the instrument

chlorine is of Martian origin, but it is possible the carbon may be of Earth origin

a new study also points to a more earthbound culprit: the presence of a land bridge connecting Asia to North America.

debated whether the climate swings were driven by sharp variations in solar activity or simply by unstable climatic processes

Earth's climate has been relatively stable since the end of the last ice age

temperatures were fairly stable, too, after the ice age began in earnest about 100,000 years ago

20,000 years later, things became unhinged

global sea level dropped to about 50 meters lower than it is today

As the ice sheets that covered North America and northern Eurasia snatched up more and more of Earth's water

exposed a broad strip of land that connected what is today Alaska and Siberia

Ancient animals used the land bridge, which measured as much as 1500 kilometers wide in spots, to roam back and forth between Asia and North America

also huge consequences for Earth's climate

two sets of climate simulations

one in which the Bering Strait was open

one in which it was blocked

each set of simulations, the researchers gradually added large amounts of fresh water to the North Atlantic between the latitudes of 20° and 50

researchers propose, this swath, which spans the latitudes from southern Cuba to southern England, would have received large amounts of meltwater from Northern Hemisphere ice sheets during warm spells that occasionally punctuated the ice age

Today, the surface waters in this swath affect the temperature and salinity of water even farther north in the Atlantic

a region where surface waters cool, sink to the seafloor, and then flow southward—a critical link of the worldwide conveyor belt of ocean circulatio

Gulf Stream, which brings climate-warming waters from the equator to the North Atlantic, comes to a halt.

If waters of the far North Atlantic don't sink, says Hu, much of the large-scale ocean circulation worldwide temporarily collapses

surface waters became so fresh that they never got denser than the underlying salty water, and therefore never sank

shutting down ocean circulation and plunging areas around the North Atlantic, including Greenland, into a cold spell

researchers noted a critical difference between the sets of simulations: When the Bering Strait was closed, it took as many as 1400 years for ocean circulation to recover; when the strait was open, the circulation rarely took more than 400 years to recuperate

sign that ocean circulation is stable when the strait is open

Whenever the ocean circulation shut down in the simulations, temperatures in Greenland suddenly dropped by 12°C—a decrease similar in magnitude to many abrupt cold snaps chronicled in the Greenland ice core records

began on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14),

uptick in activity in Earth's magnetic field sparked a geomagnetic storm

Sometimes the sky surprises us

with little warning, geomagnetic activity rippled around the Arctic Circle

producing an outbreak of auroras

among the best in months

some early speculation that a Feb. 10 sun storm, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), may have triggered the northern lights show, but this solar outburst has not yet been confirmed.

occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's upper atmosphere

creating ripples of glowing light

charged particles are funneled to Earth's poles by the planet's magnetic field

typically only visible to skywatchers in far northern or far southern latitudes

northern lights are called the aurora borealis

southern lights are dubbed the aurora australis

part of a BBC/Discovery Channel-funded expedition and is believed to be at least 10,000 years old, if not older

If further study confirms the preliminary findings, it would be the first mammoth carcass revealing signs of human interaction in the region.

in such good shape that much of its flesh is still intact, retaining its pink color. The blonde-red hue of Yuka's woolly coat also remains.

first relatively complete mammoth carcass -- that is, a body with soft tissues preserved -- to show evidence of human association

carbon dating is still in the works, the researchers believe Yuka died at least 10,000 years ago, but may be much older

The animal was about 2 ½ years old when it died.

appears that Yuka was pursued by one or more lions or another large field, judging from deep, unhealed scratches in the hide and bite marks on the tail

Yuka then apparently fell, breaking one of the lower hind legs

humans may have moved in to control the carcass, butchering much of the animal and removing parts that they would use immediately.

may, in fact, have reburied the rest of the carcass to keep it in reserve for possible later use

removed parts include most of the main core mass of Yuka's body, including organs, vertebrae, ribs, associated musculature, and some of the meat from upper parts of the legs

Kevin Campbell of the University of Manitoba also studied Yuka

Campbell famously published the genetic code of mammoth hemoglobin a few years ago

Most permafrost-preserved mammoth specimens consist solely of bones or bone fragments that currently provide little new insight into the species' biology in life

This extremely rare finding of a near complete specimen, like the discovery of the baby mammoth Lyuba in 2007, will be a boon to researchers as it will help them link observed phenotypes (morphological features that we can see) with genotype (DNA sequences)."

Such information could help reveal whether or not mammoths had all of the same hair colors that humans do

An intriguing and controversial application would be to bring a mammoth back to life via cloning.

producer and director of a forthcoming BBC/Discovery Channel show called "Woolly Mammoth"

told Discovery News that cloning a mammoth could take years or even decades.

he’s not talking and police in Texas won’t press charges against him.

good news is that the missing telescope has been found – sitting at a truck wash — after a frantic cross-country search

telescope is a high-tech irreplaceable piece of equipment that is 22 ft high 15 ft wide (6.5 X 4.5 meters

designed to detect radiation from the Big Bang and it took fifteen people 8 years to build

will be shipped to Antarctica, where it will be attached to a giant balloon in December and sent 110,000 feet (33,500 meters) into the atmosphere.

Friday, a Minnesota trucking company sent off one of their trucks with telescope inside

Monday there was no word from the trucker and the scientists started to panic when the truck didn’t show up at the NASA facility

Calls to the trucker went unanswered

The owner of the trucking company sent his son to Dallas to search for the truck and the driver

only clue was a credit card charge at a Dallas truck stop.

The son found the driver, asleep in the cab of the truck, but the trailer, with the precious cargo inside, was nowhere to be seen.

driver said he left the trailer at a hotel parking lot

when the searchers arrived, it wasn’t there

trucker clammed up and wouldn’t provide any more clues or reasons for why he didn’t deliver his cargo

another employee of the trucking company found the trailer sitting at a truck wash in Dallas

If they would not have found that particular trailer at that time, maybe half a day or a day later someone would have stolen it and taken it for metal or just for scrap,”

NASA unpacked the crate Thursday morning and said the telescope was unharmed and is in great shape

As temperatures inside the body fall, several failsafe systems spring into action

Blood vessels near the skin squeeze tight to hold warmth in, the body starts to shiver and brown fat, a tissue that’s especially plentiful in newborns, starts to produce heat

colleagues bypassed the rats’ defenses against the cold with a compound that’s similar to adenosine, a molecule in the body that signals sleepiness

After about an hour in a room chilled to 15° Celsius, the rats grew lethargic

brain waves slowed, their blood pressure dropped and their heart grew sluggish, occasionally skipping beats

The rats’ core temperature dropped from about 38°  to about 30° C, or 80° Fahrenheit

measured even lower temperatures in further experiments — rats’ core body temperature reached 15° C or about 57° F.

The rats weren’t in a coma, nor were they asleep or truly hibernating

Hibernating animals’ metabolisms plummet and their temperatures sink much lower

an Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, cools to about —3° C when it hibernates

It’s a new state

don’t really know what it is

In the experiment, loud noises and tail pinches failed to arouse the rats.

They didn’t eat or drink. Occasionally, one would slither into a corner, but for the most part, the animals stayed still for up to 6 hours

In unpublished experiments, Tupone has kept the animals in the unresponsive state for 24 hours, he says.

Warming the room coaxed the rats out of their torpor

The recovery process takes about 12 hours, during which the animals ate and drank voraciously

After recovering, the animals were alert, moved around their cages normally and slept when tired

When people have heart attacks or strokes, clinicians can use ice packs or frigid water to chill people and prevent further tissue damage

those methods of cooling take time and can have dangerous side effects