Baby Woolly Rhino Discovered In Siberia Is The First Ever Found

The Huffington Post | By Jacqueline Howard

Posted: 02/25/2015 1:09 pm EST Updated: 02/27/2015 9:59 am EST

Scientists are going gaga over the recent discovery of a baby woolly rhino.

(Academy of Sciences Republic of Sakha/Siberian Times)

The pristine specimen of the tiny extinct rhino--the only one of its type ever found--was discovered in permafrost along the bank of a stream in Siberia's Sakha Republic, The Siberian Times reported.

"At first we thought it was a reindeer's carcass, but after it thawed and fell down we saw a horn on its upper jaw and realized it must be a rhino," Alexander 'Sasha' Banderov, the hunter who made the discovery, told the Times. "The part of the carcass that stuck out of the ice was eaten by wild animals, but the rest of it was inside the permafrost and preserved well."

Continued ...

Wanted: Surrogate for Neanderthal Baby

GenomeWeb caught what must be an interesting Q&A with George Church in Germany’s Spiegel Online (I can’t personally attest to the original story as it is behind a paywall). The Harvard Medical School geneticist is quoted as saying that eventually, an “adventurous female human” will be needed to be the surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby in some 30,000 years.

This isn’t the first time Church has talked publically about cloning a Neanderthal, or at least a near-Neanderthal. In 2009, when the Neanderthal genome was first reported, the New York Times described a scenario in which a current day human genome could be tweaked into the “Neanderthal equivalent” with tools of molecular biology. Eventually, this could lead to a Neanderthal-like embryo in need of a surrogate mother.

While the idea of reviving Neanderthals may sound farfetched, take for example the work of biologists to clone endangered or extinct non-human animals (see “Stem-Cell Engineering Offers a Lifeline to Endangered Species”). In 2009, the extinct bucardo, a subspecies Spanish ibex, was cloned from a frozen skin sample. The newborn died immediately due to respiratory failure, but its birth suggests that resurrecting extinct species may be possible.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510071/wanted-surrogate-for-neanderthal-baby/

"Our baby's the devil"

'Our baby's the devil', say Colombian parents whose child can 'walk at four weeks and breathes fire'

Four-week-old 'already hides around the house and cackles for hours with intimidating eyes'

Terrified neighbours throw stones at the house - but doctors search for signs of child abuse

Black magic and evil spirits have captured the soul of a new-born baby in Colombia who can apparently already walk by himself and produce fire, his own mother has claimed.

Ana Feria Santos gave birth to her son last month but says her joy quickly turned to fear when she noticed that he had 'several abnormalities' - leading to fears in her community that he is the 'devil in disguise'.

She says the boy can already stand up and walk - quite a feat for a child of just four weeks.

Much like the 1976 horror film The Omen, the mother-of-five says he frequently hides around the house, cackles in an 'adult' way for hours on end and has an 'intimidating' pair of eyes.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224725/Our-babys-devil-say-Colombian-parents-child-walk-weeks-breathes-fire.html#ixzz2B4ZUqxpT