"Mammoth Hemoglobin Offers More Clues to Its Arctic Evolution."

Mammoth Hemoglobin Offers More Clues to Its Arctic Evolution





- In Canada, scientists have reconstructed a woolly mammoth’s hemoglobin. This started at a molecular evolutionary level. They first looked at hemoglobin genes that were active in woolly mammoths. People have 4 hemoglobin chains- alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.
- Mammoths have a combined strand of the beta and the delta chains along with the alpha chains. These barely differ from Asian elephants today.
-With this figured out, the scientists produced functioning hemoglobin molecules from a mammoth.

- With this sort of information in our hands, questions about genetic histories of the mammoth as well as questions about the differences between ancient woolly mammoths and today’s elephants can now be answered.

Reflection:
I was very fascinated by this article, because it is really amazing that we have the technology to do this sort experiment. Through new genetic techniques, scientists have finally been able to answer age- old questions about how and when mammoths and elephants split off from each other. They have also been able to come closer to creating a complete genome of a woolly mammoth.

 I understood this article since we talked about hemoglobin when we were studying sickle cell anemia and its effect on the hemoglobin cells in the body.


Wade, Nicholas. "Mammoth Hemoglobin Offers More Clues to Its Arctic Evolution."