.jpg)
The University of Alaska has witnessed a drama unfold in the corridor that leads to Matthew Woollers' lab. He and his associates tape large sheets of paper to map the levels of strontium and nitrogen. These numbers show the story of a woolly mammoth who lived over 17,000 years ago. Its birth, expulsion from its herd when it reached adolescence and its journeys across northern Alaska's Brooks Mountains before finally dying from starvation.Today's Science paper published this story. It is the first time that a single woolly mammoth has been mapped out. It is based on one of the animal tusks. Wooller and coauthors used this information to map the mammoth's movements and figure out its diet. These data are filling in the gaps in science's knowledge of mammoth behavior. It could also be used to map the movements and diets of prehistoric species. The research will give scientists a better understanding of mammoths' responses to stressors during the last ice age. It could also allow them to make better predictions about the future of large mammals today as global warming changes the environment.Wooller describes it as a soap opera that was emerging in front of us. This is the chronology Wooller and his team put together in their hallway. It was beautiful.Isotopes can be considered variations of a particular element. For example, Strontium has four stable isotopes that naturally occur: 84Sr (86Sr), 87Sr (87Sr) and 88Sr. Although they all have the same number protons, each has different numbers of neutrons. These isotopes can be found in rocks, water and on the seafloor, but they are often found in specific ratios. This means that the ratio of 87Sr and 86Sr can be used as an address to identify a particular area. These isotopes were transported from the soil to the food they ate to their bodies thousands of years ago by mammoths that grazed on grassy tundra. Wooller states that you are what your eat isotopically.Isotopes are distributed throughout the body of a person. This includes hair, teeth, and bones. The tusks of a mammal include the point where they attach to the base. Each day, minerals and radioactive isotopes traveled through the bloodstream to be deposited at the base in layers that accumulated over time. These layers, which are similar to rings on a tree trunk's trunk, provide a record about where the mammoth traveled throughout its life, from birth at the tip of its tusk until it died when no more layers were added.
