# What if You Took an Extinct Species Out Of Time And Dropped Them In the Present   Era?



## BAYLOR (Dec 13, 2015)

With  viable number specimen so that they could breed and start up again? Which species from the past could survive and compete and maybe prosper  in the present era's eco system ? Hypothetically , what challenges do  you think they might face?


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## K. Riehl (Dec 15, 2015)

Whatever the creature, they haven't adapted to modern viruses and bacteria. They wouldn't make it without quite a bit of help.

I personally would love to have a Sabertooth Tiger. Problem with the yappy dog next door? Drop the cat over the fence, problem eaten.


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## SilentRoamer (Dec 15, 2015)

One of the major issues any species would face - specifically larger and more powerful species would be that the air content has changed significantly.

The oxygen content is far lower and one of the primary reasons species are smaller today than in the past.  Jurassic park Dinos would be wheezing asthmatics.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 15, 2015)

SilentRoamer said:


> One of the major issues any species would face - specifically larger and more powerful species would be that the air content has changed significantly.
> 
> The oxygen content is far lower and one of the primary reasons species are smaller today than in the past.  Jurassic park Dinos would be wheezing asthmatics.



Some of the smaller  dino species could survive.


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## Tim Murray (Dec 15, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> Some of the smaller  dino species could survive.


How about the compy's, nasty little buggers! Put them in DC, maybe they could clean up the govt.


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## Cli-Fi (Dec 15, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> With  viable number specimen so that they could breed and start up again? Which species from the past could survive and compete and maybe prosper  in the present era's eco system ? Hypothetically , what challenges do  you think they might face?



Funny you should ask this question because a book I read awhile back deals with this issue in reverse. Just take a look a fragment's summary:




> Aboard a long-range research vessel, in the vast reaches of the South Pacific, the cast and crew of the reality show Sealife believe they have found a ratings bonanza. For a director dying for drama, a distress call from Henders Island—a mere blip on any radar—might be just the ticket. Until the first scientist sets foot on Henders—and the ultimate test of survival begins.
> 
> For when they reach the island’s shores, the scientists are utterly unprepared for what they find—creatures unlike any ever recorded in natural history. This is not a lost world frozen in time; *this is Earth as it might have looked after evolving on a separate path for half a billion years—a fragment of a lost continent, with an ecosystem that could topple ours like a house of cards.*



Fragment: A Novel: Warren Fahy: 9780553592450: Amazon.com: Books


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## BAYLOR (Dec 20, 2015)

Ammonites? If you dropped a few million specimen of them in the Ocean, they could survive , Thought they might face competition from squids and octopus which are likely a little more intelligent. Their shells would give them some protection from some of the predatory fish. 

Trilobites ?  Would have a hard time in the shallow areas because of predators and competition for food, but might  survive in the deeper parts of the  oceans with less of either.  Some specials of them in fact did live in the deep oceans .


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## BAYLOR (Feb 1, 2016)

Dunkleosteus a large fearsome predatory fish that lived during the Devonian period, member of the placoderm family which is extinct, It had powerful jaw plates instead of Teeth an was heavily armored. It grew to be about 30 feet long wasn't fast but was an absolute horror . If you introduced into It would probably find enough food to survive. It would easily be a match the great white shark and the killer whale .


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## Frost Giant (Feb 4, 2016)

The above points are all good ones, especially in reference to competition and immunity problems. There have been projects aimed at "resurrecting" the mammoth and (one of my personal favorites) the thylacine. The last known wild thylacine was gunned down by an idiot in 1930, although possible sightings of surviving animals have been reported. It is sad humans forced the thylacine into extinction, it would be nice if they could be brought back or re-discovered.
In a sense species we thought were long extinct have been re-discovered, they're referred to as living fossils. 

Living fossil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know this isn't exactly what the OP meant, but finding a small living fossil population and nurturing it into a wider population would be along similar lines.
As far as the Jurassic Park notion goes, there are still too many obstacles like sequence gaps to overcome. Even when well preserved specimens are available (like the mammoth and thylacine) cloning them has still not been achieved. Even if it was, producing a breeding population would be an almost insurmountable challenge.


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## Gramm838 (Feb 5, 2016)

Then they wouldn't be an extinct species...


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## J Riff (Feb 5, 2016)

I think people would kill them off again, which is probably what happened to all kinds of beasties. Any bug larger than about four inches would be stamped out, I betcha.


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## Ajid (Feb 8, 2016)

I think all the points raised are fair. But most of all I think we have no idea what could happen.

In the words of Dr. Alan Grant (Jurassic Park).....

"Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?"

Although I think an animal more recently extinct would have less problems. The Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger), a predatory marsupial, as mentioned earlier would be a species I'd love to see walk the earth again.


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## Khuratokh (Feb 11, 2016)

While I like the idea of seeing a live dunkleostes, it could not compete with modern orca or sharks. It can't maneuver well and misses the whale's smarts and shark's  highly tuned senses. 
I'm all for bringing back creatures we made extinct in a very short time due to how delicious they were. Dodo's (my ancestors cooked the last one. Sorry) great flightless alks, giant moa, several species of giant tortoise, budongs, etc. 
Also some others that have very recently gone like the tasmanian wolf and the ganges river dolphin. 
And some of the older ones we may or may not be responsible for killing off. Like the giant sloth or the maltese pygmee elephant. I mean puppy sized elephants! What's not to love?


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## Ajid (Feb 11, 2016)

How about a being from our own family tree. One that we either bread with or eliminated, or maybe both. Some scientists even believe they had a superior brain, as it was then, to us. I talk of course about bringing back the.....


*Neanderthal*


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## Ajid (Feb 11, 2016)

Thinking about it we don't need to I work with a few.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 11, 2016)

Ajid said:


> How about a being from our own family tree. One that we either bread with or eliminated, or maybe both. Some scientists even believe they had a superior brain, as it was then, to us. I talk of course about bringing back the.....
> 
> 
> *Neanderthal*



They did have a larger Brain pan then modern man,   4 percent of our DNA come from Neanderthals.


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## Khuratokh (Feb 11, 2016)

Ajid said:


> Thinking about it we don't need to I work with a few.



The brain cavity of Neanderthaler is larger than ours. Standing theory is that their brains were not as wrinkly as ours, thus making our brain surface larger while making the brain cavity smaller. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but we did go futher north than they did. 
If they were less smart. I'm not sure about the morality of creating a sub-species.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 11, 2016)

Khuratokh said:


> The brain cavity of Neanderthaler is larger than ours. Standing theory is that their brains were not as wrinkly as ours, thus making our brain surface larger while making the brain cavity smaller. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but we did go futher north than they did.
> If they were less smart. I'm not sure about the morality of creating a sub-species.



I wish they had survived with us.


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## Ajid (Feb 11, 2016)

if this is correct they have, a percentage of you is them and you are a little bit neanderthal. That's why all men desire Wilma Flinstone. And we all do it can't be denied.


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## Khuratokh (Feb 11, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> I wish they had survived with us.


I like to think they did survive in a way. We bred with them. They live in us now. I don't like their portrayal as dumb brutish thugs. From what I've seen from burials, they made art, they pondered the afterlife, they took care of their crippled and elders.

These were not Orks


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## Ajid (Feb 11, 2016)

Desptie my earlier slightly jokey comment I couldn't agree more with the above statement. There is something anthropologicaly amazing about the neanderthal. I can only imagine what it would be like to be on a dig site to decipher the society and daily lives of cousins that in DNA terms we still carrier woth us today. I'm envious of you khuratokh to have seem such evidence, all I've learnet has been the odd internet article and National Geographic 2 page spread.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 12, 2016)

Ajid said:


> Desptie my earlier slightly jokey comment I couldn't agree more with the above statement. There is something anthropologicaly amazing about the neanderthal. I can only imagine what it would be like to be on a dig site to decipher the society and daily lives of cousins that in DNA terms we still carrier woth us today. I'm envious of you khuratokh to have seem such evidence, all I've learnet has been the odd internet article and National Geographic 2 page spread.



They were a different branch of humanity that for a time coexisted with us . That fascinates me.


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## psychotick (Feb 12, 2016)

Hi,

No way of knowing. It depends on the species and the ecosystem they are dropped in. You can't simply say that our diseases would wipe them out because they haven't adapted to them  a la war of the worlds. Because it cuts two ways. Our diseases haven't adapted to them either. They may well not be able to affect them.

Likewise comparing predatory critters is a waste of time. You can talk about ferocity, size and speed etc all you want, but there are hundreds of factors that go into making one critter a success and another not. Number of young they have, ability to deal with climate, intelligence, etc etc. The list is almost endless.

As for Neanderthaal he may not have been wiped out at all. His DNA is part of us, so who's to say he wasn't simply part of our tribes that was less successful in breeding.

Cheers, Greg.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 14, 2016)

Passenger Pigeon once the most common bored in all of North America,  were driven to extinction due to the stupidity of over hunting and habitat destruction. The last one died in zoo in 1914. 

I wish they could bring this one back.


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## Camiedee (Feb 15, 2016)

I would like to see how the quagga would fit in today. It only went extinct about 120 years ago and wouldn't be to out of place in this day in age.


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## BAYLOR (May 8, 2016)

Basilosaurus, a primitive whale that lived during the Eocene period about 40 million years ago.  It grew to be about 60 feet long ,  was an apex ocean Predator, with powerful jaws with a very impressive set of teeth. It was likely an evolutionary dead end , died out around 34 million years ago.

 if you were to drop viable population of them in the oceans today, they could survive.


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## BAYLOR (May 9, 2016)

A further note about Bailosaurus , it if were in today Oceans , it would be the top predator in the Ocean,  At 60 feet.  it's 3 time the length of a great white  and about  twice the size of Killer whale. But, I think it would fare poorly against a pod of killer whales.  Its presence in the water would make a day at the beach a very hazardous affair and I would not want to go out on the water in any kind of small boat.   Fishermen would have a really difficult time earning a living.


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## Khuratokh (May 12, 2016)

The Tully Monster


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## Vertigo (May 12, 2016)

I don't think the comment about viruses and bacteria is necessarily relevant. Particularly if we are going far enough back. The reason being that they haven't adapted to new strains but equally those strains will have adapted away from those creatures and so in reality it may be that they find there are almost no bacteria that target them directly. Not sure about that though.

Bottom line I think it would be like any introduction of a 'foreign' species. Some would be out competed and likely die off others would probably turn out to be 'invasive' and wipe out existing species. Either way it probably wouldn't work well.

I would add that the most likely result would be the older species being out-competed by the current ones. After all there is a reason why evolution progresses. Most existing species should be better adapted to today's conditions. For example dinosaurs were already in decline before that meteor came along. Probably because they couldn't adapt well to a more varied climate; I think the seasonal weather variations they experienced were much less than the modern world, with it's current tilt and land mass distribution.


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## BAYLOR (May 12, 2016)

Vertigo said:


> I don't think the comment about viruses and bacteria is necessarily relevant. Particularly if we are going far enough back. The reason being that they haven't adapted to new strains but equally those strains will have adapted away from those creatures and so in reality it may be that they find there are almost no bacteria that target them directly. Not sure about that though.
> 
> Bottom line I think it would be like any introduction of a 'foreign' species. Some would be out competed and likely die off others would probably turn out to be 'invasive' and wipe out existing species. Either way it probably wouldn't work well.
> 
> I would add that the most likely result would be the older species being out-competed by the current ones. After all there is a reason why evolution progresses. Most existing species should be better adapted to today's conditions. For example dinosaurs were already in decline before that meteor came along. Probably because they couldn't adapt well to a more varied climate; I think the seasonal weather variations they experienced were much less than the modern world, with it's current tilt and land mass distribution.



If the asteroid had not hit, The non avian Dinosaurs would have lost their dominant position on earth. But I think that some species might still be with us today.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 13, 2016)

SilentRoamer said:


> One of the major issues any species would face - specifically larger and more powerful species would be that the air content has changed significantly.
> 
> The oxygen content is far lower and one of the primary reasons species are smaller today than in the past.  Jurassic park Dinos would be wheezing asthmatics.


er ... actually, no.

Oxy levels in the Jurassic (199.6 million years ago to 145.5 MYA) were LOWER than they are today, as this graph clearly shows:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309100615/gifmid/30.gif

Oxy levels today are the highest in about 250 million years, higher than they have been for most of the planets history, have been going up continuously for the last 50 million, and somewhat more bumpily for the last 200 million.

I have a suspicion that the myth of Earth's declining oxy levels got started in the marketing of bogus "oxygen water" products sold to the unusually credulous. I know for a fact the con artists selling the stuff made that claim.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 13, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> Passenger Pigeon once the most common bored in all of North America . . .


Hard to see how they could have been bored when faced with an existential threat. Terrified maybe, but not bored.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 13, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> With  viable number specimen so that they could breed and start up again? Which species from the past could survive and compete and maybe prosper  in the present era's eco system ? Hypothetically , what challenges do  you think they might face?


There are hundreds of medium to large animal species that became extinct during the present interglacial that should have no problem with the climate. They got exterminated by invasive species, like, but not limited to, humans. The moas may be the most interesting. They are said to have been very tastey. So I'll vote for them, because I'd love to pig out in an all you can eat place, and then say "I'll think I'll have some moa."


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## BAYLOR (May 13, 2016)

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> Hard to see how they could have been bored when faced with an existential threat. Terrified maybe, but not bored.



A Typo on my part.

There have talks about bring this special back via cloning.


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## BAYLOR (May 13, 2016)

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> There are hundreds of medium to large animal species that became extinct during the present interglacial that should have no problem with the climate. They got exterminated by invasive species, like, but not limited to, humans. The moas may be the most interesting. They are said to have been very tastey. So I'll vote for them, because I'd love to pig out in an all you can eat place, and then say "I'll think I'll have some moa."



Some of the smaller varieties of Moa may made it to the 19th Century.

The Moa's closet relative is the Kiwi bird.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 13, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> A Typo on my part.


I understood. I speak fluent Typonese. It's just that I'm addicted to word play. I figure health insurance will soon be required to cover therapy for it and then I can find a program in a clinic somewhere in the Carribean. Of course I doubt if they'll actually be able to CURE it, so I'll have to go for periodic therapy. Hey, if heavy metal music addiction can make the grade, surely pun addiction can.


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## Khuratokh (May 13, 2016)

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> er ... actually, no.
> 
> Oxy levels in the Jurassic (199.6 million years ago to 145.5 MYA) were LOWER than they are today, as this graph clearly shows:
> http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309100615/gifmid/30.gif
> ...



Well how do we explain the giant dragonfly ? If there isn't a higher oxygen content, how could itsurvive?


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 13, 2016)

Khuratokh said:


> Well how do we explain the giant dragonfly ? If there isn't a higher oxygen content, how could itsurvive?


In a nutshell, because old assumptions about insect physiology are wrong. This is pretty well accepted now, and any old guard biologist that wants to fight a rear guard action against modern views bears the burden of proof. Prehistoric atmospheric chemistry has been a pretty active field of research in last few years (2 guesses why) and this giant-dragonflies-had-to-have-elevated-oxy hypothesis has had to yield to more recent data.

In a general way, this is an oft-told story: scientists advance a tentative hypothesis appropriately couched with reservations, popularizers report it as proven fact shorn of all qualifiers, high school teachers promulgate it as divine revelation of the god Science, and it becomes popular dogma. Beware of what "everybody knows".

I could spend a ridiculous amount of time documenting this, but this Wikipedia quotation sums it up pretty well:

"The large size of insects and amphibians in the Carboniferous period, where oxygen reached 35% of the atmosphere, has been attributed to the limiting role of diffusion in these organisms' metabolism.[citation needed] But Haldane's essay[12] points out that it would only apply to insects. However, the biological basis for this correlation is not firm, and many lines of evidence show that oxygen concentration is not size-limiting in modern insects.[9] Interestingly, there is no significant correlation between atmospheric oxygen and maximum body size elsewhere in the geological record.[9] Ecological constraints can better explain the diminutive size of post-Carboniferous dragonflies - for instance, the appearance of flying competitors such as pterosaurs and birds and bats.[9]"

from:
Geological history of oxygen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even when this idea was accepted, it didn't apply to animals that actively breathe, as vertebrates clearly do, and as at least some insects are now suspected of doing, and the assertion was about "any animal" and specifically "Jurassic park Dinos".

And regardless of why, the more direct evidence on prehistoric atmospheric chemistry has to trump this rather questionable indirect argument.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 14, 2016)

BTW, the "Haldane" alluded to above is JBSH, the same guy who did so much work on decompression theory, and so much else. Guy was almost as much an amazing polymath as Pauling.


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## BAYLOR (May 14, 2016)

There are some species of Isopods in the deep sea that get to be the size of a soccer ball.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (May 14, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> There are some species of Isopods in the deep sea that get to be the size of a soccer ball.


Interesting. Thanks, Baylor. I wasn't clear what an isopod was so I looked it up. For my fellow ignoramuses, they are a subset of crustacean and they do include some crawly, bettle-y looking species like the ones commonly called "pill bugs" that look rather like insects to the casual observer. And the most extreme examples actually even get up to 20 inches in diam which is about twice as big as a soccer or basket ball, or so saith Wikipedia: Giant isopod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And, BTW, your basilosaurus does indeed sound like a serious bad-ass. I wonder if they completely died out or if they had descendants with extra features that outcompeted the old gaurd before turning into Flipper and Friends.


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## BAYLOR (May 14, 2016)

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> Interesting. Thanks, Baylor. I wasn't clear what an isopod was so I looked it up. For my fellow ignoramuses, they are a subset of crustacean and they do include some crawly, bettle-y looking species like the ones commonly called "pill bugs" that look rather like insects to the casual observer. And the most extreme examples actually even get up to 20 inches in diam which is about twice as big as a soccer or basket ball, or so saith Wikipedia: Giant isopod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> And, BTW, your basilosaurus does indeed sound like a serious bad-ass. I wonder if they completely died out or if they had descendants with extra features that outcompeted the old gaurd before turning into Flipper and Friends.



According to the fossil records Basilosaurus went extinct  34 million years ago .   Their closest  relative was Durodon  which resembled them (except they were much smaller and food for them) died out at about the same time . They lacked the ability to dive deep nor could they echolocate which  may have put them at a disadvantaged when the seas cooled 34 million years ago.  In whale evolution they were a dead end  and thus have no descending linage of any kind.  Some think that Lock Ness and other sea monsters might be them, Im a bit skeptical on that one.

I do think that if you plunked them down in today's ocean ,  they could survive.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 22, 2016)

The Otodus Shark which was predecessor to Megalodon   grew 30 feet which is larger  then the largest recorded Great White shark.  As big as it is, it could find enough food to survive in out era.


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## BAYLOR (Jun 24, 2018)

What if something like Jurassic  world were to happen ? How would the Dinosaurs fare in our climate?


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## Anthoney (Jun 25, 2018)

A link to an articular on bringing the mammoth back.   Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal

And here's a book on the same thing.  Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich


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## BAYLOR (Jun 25, 2018)

Anthoney said:


> A link to an articular on bringing the mammoth back.   Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal
> 
> And here's a book on the same thing.  Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich



If they could bring back the Mammoth . where would it be allowed to roam? North America in the National Parks?


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## Anthoney (Jun 25, 2018)

Somewhere in the vast lands of northern Canada or maybe Alaska.  According to the material list it's a matter of when not if.


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## Vladd67 (Jun 25, 2018)

Wow so many anti science comments on that Guardian article.


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