Friday, May 1, 2015

AN INQUIRY OF MAMMOTH PROPORTIONS

What follows may or may not relate to  George Church and Stewart Brand's modest proposal to reconstruct the mammoth genome as a prelude to resurrecting the species:


Tracking down the Explorers Club Mammoth
(or Giant Ground Sloth?)

Yale paleontologists need your help! 

Did you or anyone you know attend the 1951 Explorers Club Annual Dinner at which mammoth meat was served? 

Archivists have  found that at the dinner, members actually debated whether they were eating frozen mammoth or frozen giant ground sloth.  

We want to know which species it was so that we can mount an expedition to Akutan Island in search of more remains.
  
We have a preserved piece of meat from that dinner that we are attempting to test for DNA but any extra evidence we can get would really help us out.  If you have any photos, letters, journal entries, etc. that describe the meal, please contact :  
                                                                                                                                                      matthew.davis@yale.edu