Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant

Rating:
Summary: Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant
Review: I liked this book because, as every great book should, it stimulated my curiosty and imagination. It made the little-known,long extinct animal come to life. I could picture Dima, the baby mammoth, as he lay dying in a frozen Siberian steppe 40,000 years ago, starving without his mother's milk. I could also feel the bitter-cold howling winds as explorers were searching for mammoth remains.
The book raises questions to which there are no answers yet, such as how did mammoths become extinct and could they be "brought back" with the help of modern technology. This makes one ponder the ethics of cloning and then breeding pre-historic animals in today's environment.
Last but not least, the book made me realize that even in this age of ever-present internet there are still true hands-on adventurers out there, determined and dedicated individuals who are conquering new frontiers in search of unknown and little-known phenomena.
And, of course, there are writers to write about it.

Rating:
Summary: Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant
Review: Mammoth: THe Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant written by Richard Stone is a book about adventure, but not just your oridinary adventure. The Adventure here is about the unearthing of giant animals from the Pleistocene Era... Giant Wooly Mammoths in the permafrost of Siberia. This is a very provocative book as the science is beautifully clear.

The Wooly Mammoth roamed Europe, Asia and North America and grew to huge proportions, but later became extinct and all that we know of their existance is being uncovered by some very good scientific research. Now, a new generation of explorers has taken up the challange, to find out more about the mammoth and the life and times that existed during their lifetimes. Armed with ground-penetrating radar, GPS, and helecopters the large expanse of Siberia is begins to yield some interesting finds and the clues that go along with more and more information.

There is promiss in this book that once again the mammoth may live... how you say can this happen... well through DNA and cloning. This book takes you on a rigerous adventure through frontiers of science. Yes, theoretically it can be done, but this book examins both the profound philosophical questions about the risks and morality of executing these efforts. Liken to "Jurassic Park," you say.. and you would be correct.

Theories exist as to why the mammoth did out and became extinct... one of which is the overchill theory as the Earth became increasingly cooler the food supply for the mammoth became less and less forage for the animal, next the psychological change of being penned in by dense forest and glacier. Mammoth were used to living in the Northern cooler climates as is evidece in the finds of today. So much so, as there are finds in the small islands of the Arctic Ocean.

This book tells a riveting adventureus tale that is fascinating to read. The prose flows well as you, the reader, are now in the hunt for the mammoth. The text treats the reader to a review of the wide variety of information Stone has learned about the Mammoth while doing research.

Rating:
Summary: Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant
Review: Mammoth: THe Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant written by Richard Stone is a book about adventure, but not just your oridinary adventure. The Adventure here is about the unearthing of giant animals from the Pleistocene Era... Giant Wooly Mammoths in the permafrost of Siberia. This is a very provocative book as the science is beautifully clear.

The Wooly Mammoth roamed Europe, Asia and North America and grew to huge proportions, but later became extinct and all that we know of their existance is being uncovered by some very good scientific research. Now, a new generation of explorers has taken up the challange, to find out more about the mammoth and the life and times that existed during their lifetimes. Armed with ground-penetrating radar, GPS, and helecopters the large expanse of Siberia is begins to yield some interesting finds and the clues that go along with more and more information.

There is promiss in this book that once again the mammoth may live... how you say can this happen... well through DNA and cloning. This book takes you on a rigerous adventure through frontiers of science. Yes, theoretically it can be done, but this book examins both the profound philosophical questions about the risks and morality of executing these efforts. Liken to "Jurassic Park," you say.. and you would be correct.

Theories exist as to why the mammoth did out and became extinct... one of which is the overchill theory as the Earth became increasingly cooler the food supply for the mammoth became less and less forage for the animal, next the psychological change of being penned in by dense forest and glacier. Mammoth were used to living in the Northern cooler climates as is evidece in the finds of today. So much so, as there are finds in the small islands of the Arctic Ocean.

This book tells a riveting adventureus tale that is fascinating to read. The prose flows well as you, the reader, are now in the hunt for the mammoth. The text treats the reader to a review of the wide variety of information Stone has learned about the Mammoth while doing research.

Rating:
Summary: Titan
Review: Richard Stone's "Mammoth" opens the mind's eye to vivid and unexpected worlds of discovery - past, present, and future, from Pleistocene hunting parties who pursued the woolly colossus for sustenance, to 21st-century scientists who seek the still fugitive hunk of flesh from which, they hope, they will find themselves able to extract an unadulterated archive of genetic material; to those dreamers who would not only resurrect a creature that nature and history have conspired to bury beneath the snow but also to reconstruct around it a "Pleistocene Park," an entire ecosystem of the kind in which the ancient animal flourished.

What, indeed, caused the mammoth's disappearance in the first place? Stone asks. Was it climate change, for instance, or was it overhunting - or was it some horrible "hyperdisease" to which, if we extract the behemoth from its icy sepulchre, we might expose ourselves?

But "Mammoth" is not just a natural history; it is also a front-seat adventure that takes us on a trek of thousands of kilometers, from locales as diverse as Tokyo and North Africa to the vast whiteness and bone-chilling cold of the Siberian Arctic. It is an expedition that marries gleaming Western technologies to creaky post-Soviet gear and traverses the chaos and corruption of today's Russia. It is a quest, too, that brooks the terror of indigenous peoples that the latter-day grave-robbers about whom we read might expose themselves - and all of us, in their heedless arrogance - to some ancient curse or unpredictable calamity.

Rating:
Summary: Big mammoth--No Hat
Review: This book is a dreadful disappointment because the expedition was a bust. As a result, the author has injected a tedious history of mammoth hunting into the story--which is the story of struggling mightily to unearth and defrost an entire wooly mammoth. Unfortunately, the giant block of permafrost thought to contain an entire frozen beast yields only the usual bones and a small amount of mammoth flesh. According to the author, this mammoth flesh emits a distinct and odious aroma. So does this book.

Rating:
Summary: A mammoth primer and more
Review: This book is enjoyable to read and packed with information. Richard Stone does a great job with the mostly scientific material while keeping it entertaining with descriptions of travel to Siberia. This book is an excellent primer on mammoths--their biology, their fossil record, the history of their discovery by humans, the theories of their extinction--and it has a bibliography if you would like to know more. But it is more than that. In discussing current research on mammoths, he covers paleontolgy, arctic exploration, Russian history, genetics, molecular biology, biogeography, and anthropology, and handles all of them equally well. The center piece of the book is the expedition to unearth the Jarkov mammoth and thaw it slowly to find out how intact it is (you would be surprised how many intact frozen mammoths have gone on record as having been left to the wolves to eat or fed to dogs, or just left to rot--what a waste!). The book ends with some uncertainty about how valuable the Jarkov mammoth will be, but that did not distract me from finding this a very satisfying book.

One small thing that would have made this book better is a graphic depiction of a timeline of the Pleistocene. I have trouble keeping my dates straight.

Rating:
Summary: A mammoth primer and more
Review: This book is enjoyable to read and packed with information. Richard Stone does a great job with the mostly scientific material while keeping it entertaining with descriptions of travel to Siberia. This book is an excellent primer on mammoths--their biology, their fossil record, the history of their discovery by humans, the theories of their extinction--and it has a bibliography if you would like to know more. But it is more than that. In discussing current research on mammoths, he covers paleontolgy, arctic exploration, Russian history, genetics, molecular biology, biogeography, and anthropology, and handles all of them equally well. The center piece of the book is the expedition to unearth the Jarkov mammoth and thaw it slowly to find out how intact it is (you would be surprised how many intact frozen mammoths have gone on record as having been left to the wolves to eat or fed to dogs, or just left to rot--what a waste!). The book ends with some uncertainty about how valuable the Jarkov mammoth will be, but that did not distract me from finding this a very satisfying book.

One small thing that would have made this book better is a graphic depiction of a timeline of the Pleistocene. I have trouble keeping my dates straight.

Rating:
Summary: A Shaggy Elephant Story
Review: This fascinating little book is about a large and extinct creature, the mammoth. Evidence of this creature, which last walked the earth 37 centuries ago, seems to be scattered all over the place in North America and in Siberia. This book describes the work of a mixed band of mammoth enthusiasts as they search for mammoths frozen in the tundra of Russia's Far North.

There is an international cast in this story-a French arctic travel guide, Russian academics, Japanese experts in reproductive science, a Dutch amateur with a house stuffed with mammoth bones and, of course, the folks at the Discovery Channel trying to make this all into Good Television or, at least, Show Biz. Unfortunately, this book comes a bit too early--biotechnology has not advanced to the point where a mammoth might be cloned from scattered remnants of DNA and a superb specimen, frozen in the ice with useful bits intact, had not been found by the time the book went to press. Instead, author Richard Stone does an admirable job in sewing parts together to tell this story.

We learn that the inhabitants of Siberia believe that digging up the bones of mammoths brings bad luck, but there is nothing wrong with taking tusks when they are found. Huge numbers of tusks, estimated from 50,000 animals, have been shipped out in the last century. Scientists made arduous journeys trying to discover more about mammoths and our strong interest in them continues to this day. The book details how mammoths probably lived and alternative explanations about how they became extinct--through climactic change, being hunted or wiped out by disease.

This is quite interesting and the sections about cloning mammoths are highly imaginative and entertaining. Mr. Stone has done good research and writes engagingly of his voyages beyond the beyond. And he does not shy away from commenting on the ethical question of cloning extinct species. But at the end of the day, one has to wonder about the resources invested into the quixotic expeditions he details when there are pressing issues in habitat conservation today, including the protection of that much-loved and much-decimated relative of the mammoth, the elephant.

Recommended for those with an interest in science on the fringes...

Rating:
Summary: A Shaggy Elephant Story
Review: This fascinating little book is about a large and extinct creature, the mammoth. Evidence of this creature, which last walked the earth 37 centuries ago, seems to be scattered all over the place in North America and in Siberia. This book describes the work of a mixed band of mammoth enthusiasts as they search for mammoths frozen in the tundra of Russia's Far North.

There is an international cast in this story-a French arctic travel guide, Russian academics, Japanese experts in reproductive science, a Dutch amateur with a house stuffed with mammoth bones and, of course, the folks at the Discovery Channel trying to make this all into Good Television or, at least, Show Biz. Unfortunately, this book comes a bit too early--biotechnology has not advanced to the point where a mammoth might be cloned from scattered remnants of DNA and a superb specimen, frozen in the ice with useful bits intact, had not been found by the time the book went to press. Instead, author Richard Stone does an admirable job in sewing parts together to tell this story.

We learn that the inhabitants of Siberia believe that digging up the bones of mammoths brings bad luck, but there is nothing wrong with taking tusks when they are found. Huge numbers of tusks, estimated from 50,000 animals, have been shipped out in the last century. Scientists made arduous journeys trying to discover more about mammoths and our strong interest in them continues to this day. The book details how mammoths probably lived and alternative explanations about how they became extinct--through climactic change, being hunted or wiped out by disease.

This is quite interesting and the sections about cloning mammoths are highly imaginative and entertaining. Mr. Stone has done good research and writes engagingly of his voyages beyond the beyond. And he does not shy away from commenting on the ethical question of cloning extinct species. But at the end of the day, one has to wonder about the resources invested into the quixotic expeditions he details when there are pressing issues in habitat conservation today, including the protection of that much-loved and much-decimated relative of the mammoth, the elephant.

Recommended for those with an interest in science on the fringes...