M.J. Rose

This may sound like science fiction, but scientists really are resurrecting lost species.

The Mammoth Cometh

Bringing extinct animals back to life is really happening — and it’s going to be very, very cool. Unless it ends up being very, very bad.

By NATHANIEL RICH (New York Times)

“The first time Ben Novak saw a passenger pigeon, he fell to his knees and remained in that position, speechless, for 20 minutes. He was 16. At 13, Novak vowed to devote his life to resurrecting extinct animals. At 14, he saw a photograph of a passenger pigeon in an Audubon Society book and “fell in love.” But he didn’t know that the Science Museum of Minnesota, which he was then visiting with a summer program for North Dakotan high-school students, had them in their collection. He was shocked when he came across a cabinet containing two stuffed pigeons, a male and a female, mounted in lifelike poses. He was overcome by awe, sadness and the birds’ physical beauty: their bright auburn breasts, slate-gray backs and the dusting of iridescence around their napes that, depending on the light and angle, appeared purple, fuchsia or green. Before his chaperones dragged him out of the room, Novak snapped a photograph with his disposable camera. The flash was too strong, however, and when the film was processed several weeks later, he was haunted to discover that the photograph hadn’t developed. It was blank, just a flash of white light.

In the decade since, Novak has visited 339 passenger pigeons — at the Burke Museum in Seattle, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Harvard’s Ornithology Department, which has 145 specimens, including eight pigeon corpses preserved in jars of ethanol, 31 eggs and a partly albino pigeon. There are 1,532 passenger-pigeon specimens left on Earth. On Sept. 1, 1914, Martha, the last captive passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo…”

For the complete article (it’s really quite wonderful) click here to go to the New York Times Magazine.

The Ascent of the Blessed, detail from a panel of an alterpiece of the Last Judgement.

A few years ago, we focused on reincarnation related content here, so for old time’s sake let’s revisit that theme. The personal account below was written by blog editor Emily, and below that is an introduction to an interesting article about near-death experiences. Enjoy…

The tunnel and angel image above was on the cover of a book in my mother’s bookshelf when I was a child. I was fascinated by the imagery, not because we were religious and believed in angels, we were not and did not, but because I had what I thought was an out of body experience at the age 12, and my own experience eerily mirrored this painted scene.

While the imagery was not an exact match, the tunnel was there, the enticing light, and the human-like beings paired with their angelic guides. In my memory of the experience, I felt an almost overpowering sense of togetherness and belonging – this is a feeling that is commonly reported by people who have had similar bizarre “dreams”- although I was completely alone. I had no guide. It was just me, or rather, a bodiless version me, floating near the lip of an otherworldly tunnel until I was suddenly joined by two beings – the tall one made entirely of light, and the other, a vibrant and almost beaming version of our family friend David, who had very recently passed away. I was so incredibly happy to be with them and I could imagine staying there forever.

But I was just a visitor. That was made clear by the fact that I was peering in at them as if from the edge of a well, and I was not allowed to dive in.

I spent just a few moments at the edge of infinite light and love, and was utterly packed with euphoria, despite the overwhelming fearsome panic that a person would be smacked with after being inexplicably hurled through space. Where I had been was no purgatory of dark nothingness, in fact, it was so much muchness that mere worldly life seemed a bit like a shoddy miniature at a theme park in comparison. As a result, the experience has a vivid permanence for me, even nearly thirty years later, like a sort of hot brand in my mind, and I have been fascinated with OBEs and near death experiences ever since.

I have no explanation for what happened to me (was it a dream? A loss of oxygen to the brain in my sleep?…) nor have I been able to completely interpret the very matter-of-fact message that was communicated to me by our friend David and his tall being of light: “Be thankful for your head and your lungs,” they said to me, in unison, as if by telepathy.

I am still trying to figure that one out…

But I digress…

Is this proof near-death experiences ARE real? Extraordinary new book by intensive care nurse reveals dramatic evidence she says should banish our fear of dying

By Penny Sartori

“As a nurse, I’m always cheered when I see a patient who appears to be making a good recovery. That certainly seemed the case with 60-year-old Tom Kennard, who’d been suffering from sepsis after surgery for cancer.

After a couple weeks in the intensive care ward, he was well enough to be moved from his hospital bed to a chair. Moments later, however, he suddenly slumped into unconsciousness.

There was no doubt at all that he was out cold. He responded neither to my urgent questions nor to the painful pressure of my Biro on his fingernails. 

Worse still, his skin became clammy, his oxygen levels dropped and his blood pressure plummeted — clear signs that his condition had become critical.

As I quickly gave him extra oxygen, I called out to the other nurses in the intensive care unit. Four of them immediately flocked to Tom’s bedside, and we gently helped return him to his bed as we called for a doctor urgently.

He was still unresponsive when the doctor arrived, followed a few minutes later by a consultant.

Indeed, Tom didn’t regain full consciousness for another three hours.

Yet, during those three lost hours, he had apparently gone on a life-changing journey…”

Read the rest here at the DailyMail.

This does not see morbid to us at all, but rather a beautiful way to preserve a loved one’s memory: Create from their very own carbon a gem stone to be passed down through generations. What do you think Dear Readers?

Meet the Man Who Transforms Corpses into Diamonds

By Gian Volpicelli

Vice.com

“Rinaldo Willy’s job is to transform dead people into precious stones.

Willy, 33, is the founder and CEO of Algordanza, a peculiar funeral home based in the lovely town of Domat/Ems in western Switzerland. Algordanza—which in the local Romansch language means “remembrance”—is one of the leaders in the production of so called “memorial diamonds.” If you fancy a blinged-out eternal sleep, Algordanza will put the latest technologies at your service to convert your ashes into a synthetic diamond.

The price for this transfiguration ranges between 4,500 and 20,000 Swiss francs ($5,000-$22,000), depending on how big a diamond you want to become. That includes the packaging of your shiny remains into what the firm’s website describes as a “noble wooden box.” But it will then be up to your loved ones to decide whether to leave you in your noble box or put you on a ring or pendant so they can carry you around with them.

Every year, 850 former-people enter Algordanza’s laboratory to emerge some years later as a precious gem. While shortage of land and increasing population are calling the traditional cemetery model into question, perhaps the future of corpse management could lie in this unusual blend of mortuary science and jewelry.

To further investigate, I caught up with the man himself, Rinaldo Willy.

Motherboard: So, can you tell us how you got the idea of making diamonds from corpses?

The idea first struck me ten years ago, when I was a student of economics. One of my teachers gave me an article by a Russian scientist to read; it was about the production of synthetic diamonds to be used in the semiconductor industry. The article explained how such diamonds could be made from ashes, and I misinterpreted it, thinking it was referring to human ashes–while in fact it was talking about vegetable ashes…”

For the complete post click here.