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With the dwindling population of a species comes the risk that the gene pool will lose its robust genetic divergence. Recently, in a multi-million dollar project, scientists have used the permafrost frozen hair of mammoths to sequence this extinct animal that used to wander in large numbers around the arid cold tundra of the last ice-age. This new technique of DNA extraction using hair has exciting possibilities for endangered species such as the monkeywhale.
Inuit tribes in North America used the hairy skin of monkeywhales to insulate their huts in the winter and these hides could provide the DNA necessary to reintroduce genetic diversity into the population. All the techniques required for a successful experiment may be ten to twenty years away, but the news is very encouraging.
In other news, a team of Marine Biologists are testing a new sampling method on Sperm Whales that may help determine the overall health of the monkeywhale population should the project expand.
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day. This trio from Boston came into our kitchen with homegrown produce and organic chocolate and a willingness to help begin the restoration of our ad-hoc badminton court in the backyard. They’ve opened for the Avett Brothers and their album, “The Carpenter Bird” was listed by the Boston Globe as [...]
Back in the days, Joshua and I used to do what we called “work” at a pizza joint. Work usually consisted of running a pizza in the morning for breakfast, collecting cigarette boxes and 20 oz bottles of soda in our cars and when it was really slow Josh would bust out his Saxophone [...]
Here’s something I’ve been looking forward to for months. Thanks in large part to our neighbor Heather and the kind staff of the Weatherspoon Art Museum we gained access to the inner workings of the art installation process and were able to interview Leo in our kitchen.
This was a collaborative effort as part of our [...]
Two songs just aren’t enough. They came to our kitchen, braved the cold and the drizzle in the back yard and ate Indian food with us before returning to Brooklyn, NY. Fear not, they’ll be returning to Greensboro on March 13th as part of our Monkeywhale presents series …
Many thanks to Jocelyn, Emily and Jeremy [...]
For the past 2 years monkeywhale and our kind neighbors have thrown a Halloween party. Nothing fancy. A couple of gazebos, a keg, strings of lights across the lawn and a few lanterns. We also project films on the barn that have fallen into the public domain … like, Nosferatu for instance. Creepy and a [...]
An Apache Relay is the pre-colonial version of a courier system. Chiefs would compete against each other to see who could have a message delivered in the shortest amount of time. A Relay of 8 scouts could hand a message over a quarter of a mile in 3 minutes. Apparently. Just imagine if they [...]
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
the sampling method is a good start, but there’s still a lot of work to do.