Mammoth Tooth Found In Downtown San Francisco

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Mammoth Tooth Found In Downtown San Francisco

Posted by timothy on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:33AM from the that'll-put-somebody's-kids-through-college dept.

DevotedSkeptic writes with this excerpt pulled from the San Francisco Chronicle:"A seemingly ordinary day at the Transbay Transit Center construction site became a mammoth day of discovery Monday when a mild-mannered crane operator reached deep into the earth and pulled out a tooth. This was no ordinary tooth. The 10-inch-long brown, black and beige chomper, broken in two and missing a chunk, once belonged to a woolly mammoth, an elephantine creature that roamed the grassy valley that's now San Francisco Bay 10 to 15 thousand years ago in the Pleistocene epoch."

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meet the by binarylarry · 2012-09-14 11:35 · Score: 5, Funny

I hope he held it high in the air and yelled "Yabba dabba dooooooo!"

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1. Re:meet the by AG+the+other · 2012-09-14 11:43 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Wish I had some mod points. That's a good one.
  
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2. Re:meet the by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 11:48 · Score: 0
  
  dude Yerba double toooooooooth!! would have been more appropriate.
  ok it's lame I'll show myself out.
3. Re:meet the by SternisheFan · 2012-09-14 11:54 · Score: 0
  
  How do you mod when you're using an android phone?
4. Re:meet the by wonkey_monkey · 2012-09-14 12:17 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  People from Dubai don't like The Flintstones, but those from Abu Dhabi do.
  
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  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
5. Re:meet the by xevioso · 2012-09-14 12:23 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  stop. just...stop.
6. Re:meet the by wonkey_monkey · 2012-09-14 20:25 · Score: 1
  
  I wish I could, but I can't. What's E.T. short for?
  
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  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
7. Re:meet the by Dogtanian · 2012-09-14 23:41 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I wish I could, but I can't. What's E.T. short for?
  Evolutionary reasons- the gravity on his home planet is relatively high.
  
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8. Re:meet the by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-15 00:30 · Score: 0
  
  Thank you for introducing me to Slashdot Japan in English. With headlines like "Why do you need the growth of the railway children" I know which site I'll be visiting more often.
9. Re:meet the by Dogtanian · 2012-09-15 01:05 · Score: 2
  
  (Note; this is a reference to my supposed "homepage" link, which actually points to Slashdot Japan shoved through Google Translate)
  
  Thank you for introducing me to Slashdot Japan in English. With headlines like "Why do you need the growth of the railway children" I know which site I'll be visiting more often.
  Yes, I can only assume that Japanese is a language that isn't as simple to auto-translate to English as others. Google Translate does quite a good job on some European languages, but Japanese comes across as quaintly bizarre at best and downright incomprehensible way too often. :-)
  
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10. Re:meet the by bobbozzo · 2012-09-15 20:19 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe Firefox on Android would work better?
  It's a memory pig compared to the built-in Android browser, though.
  
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11. Re:meet the by bobbozzo · 2012-09-15 20:22 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I can only assume that Japanese is a language that isn't as simple to auto-translate to English as others. Google Translate does quite a good job on some European languages, but Japanese comes across as quaintly bizarre at best and downright incomprehensible way too often. :-)
  So what you're saying is that it's similar to human-translation of Japanese to English?
  
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12. Re:meet the by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-15 23:48 · Score: 0
  
  You what say? Stupid humans. Japanese world of first language. It is. Your hovercraft is full of not so honorable eels.
13. Re:meet the by riT-k0MA · 2012-09-18 00:03 · Score: 2
  
  Normal people don't read slashdot.
Hey Barney! by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-09-14 11:44 · Score: 5, Funny

"A seemingly ordinary day at the Transbay Transit Center construction site became a mammoth day of discovery Monday when a mild-mannered crane operator reached deep into the earth and pulled out a tooth.
He proceeded to shout in a peculiar dialect and then slide barefoot down the spine of his crane to the bedrock below. Excited about this new discovery... or maybe it was that it was quittin time, he sang a catchy little tune and pushed his car home. According to legend, he had ribs for dinner.

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1. Re:Hey Barney! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-09-15 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  "mild-mannered crane operator"
  Why do they mention "mild-mannered" in this rather explicit manner? Is it somehow important for the narrative? Did the touch of the tooth mutate him intro a violent prehistoric ancestor of the Hulk?
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
Even if the rest of the HSR project is never built by MrEricSir · 2012-09-14 11:49 · Score: 1

...at least we'll have a mammoth tooth!

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San Francisco by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 11:56 · Score: 1

will not make a joke about a tooth fairy in SF...nope, won't.
1. Re:San Francisco by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 19:44 · Score: 0
  
  I left my tooth in San Francisco
  high on a hill, it fell from me
Pleistocene was a paradise by Spy+Handler · 2012-09-14 11:56 · Score: 4, Funny

There was no SF Bay when that mammoth was walking around. Evil humans hadn't begun changing the climate and melting glaciers yet, so the sea level was at its optimum. SF and NY were hundreds of miles inland, so real estate prices were affordable. Chicago was under several kilometers of ice, thank goodness.
All in all, a wonderful time.
1. Re:Pleistocene was a paradise by 517714 · 2012-09-14 19:02 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Well of course the mammoth wasn't native to the bay area, the tooth was "brown, black and beige," obviously it was British.
  
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Stop work! by danbuter · 2012-09-14 12:59 · Score: 1, Interesting

Sadly for the Transit Authority, all work will have to be stopped and archeologists will have to be called in. I expect this project will lose at least two years in construction time.
if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-14 13:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

can we at least get pleistocene park?
you will be the coolest bastard since pt barnum and have instant historical fame
there's got to be some internet bazillionaire who doesn't want to fly into space, but really wants a f**cking wooly mammoth in his back yard
ok then. get it done!
the gobs of dna we have from many specimens, some elephant zygote blanked out, and an elephant surrogate mother... i mean we're on the cusp of this happening, aren't we?

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1. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 13:51 · Score: 0
  
  yeah, i don't give a shit about outerspace. any place we can reach in our lifetime is just going to be a barren desert with nothing to see. fuck that shit. but i would love to be able to see natural history living in front of my eyes! it seems like this spaceflight crap is the new "hot air balloon around the world" crap billionaires used to pull last century. come on, do something cool! at least make an amazing natural history museum in sf? all the old oil barrens and bankers built up new york's museums to world class level, why does the bay with so many billionaires have such a "museum gap" with other major world cities?
  anyways, fuck yes, clone some damn mammoths!
2. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-14 13:58 · Score: 2
  
  cave bears!
  irish elk!
  wooly rhinos!
  giant ground sloths!
  sabretooth motherfucknig tigers!
  damn man, for real, let's do this already you rich bastards
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
3. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by NoMaster · 2012-09-14 14:35 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  can we at least get pleistocene park?
  
  We can't even manage Holocene Park properly - the dominant animal at the top of the food chain runs rampant, destroying everything in its sight, and is starting to escape its confines and invade neighbouring locations - and you want to start on Pleistocene Park?
  
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4. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by SternisheFan · 2012-09-14 14:41 · Score: 2
  
  Oh man, have you never seen Jurassic Park? They're probably extinct for good reason. Maybe they didn't play well with others, whatever the reason, Mother Nature told 'em to get out of the gene pool. She's got a pretty great record, so far, when it comes to knowing which species should advance and which should be tar-pit food. But we could all have nice warm coats...
5. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-14 15:09 · Score: 1
  
  It wasn't mother nature who did in the pleistocene guys
  Twas us
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
6. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-14 15:31 · Score: 1
  
  Dont worry, the holocene ends Dec 21, 2012. Blank slate, wiped clean, start over with the prokaryotes
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
7. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by Dogtanian · 2012-09-15 00:24 · Score: 2
  
  can we at least get pleistocene park?
  Well, these dinosaurs are obviously from the, er, Plasticine era. ;-)
  
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8. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by fustakrakich · 2012-09-15 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  We aren't nature?
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
9. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by couchslug · 2012-09-15 04:05 · Score: 2
  
  "there's got to be some internet bazillionaire who doesn't want to fly into space, but really wants a f**cking wooly mammoth in his back yard"
  He can marry my mother-in-law instead.
  
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  "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
10. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-15 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  No, we're not
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
11. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by fustakrakich · 2012-09-15 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  That's odd. Then where did we come from if not from nature? Are you saying we are somehow special, separate from the universe? And when did we become 'unnatural'?
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
12. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-15 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  When we started terraforming based on our abstract ideas rather than purely our genetic need to reproduce
  
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13. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by fustakrakich · 2012-09-15 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  Our 'abstract' ideas come from a very normal, natural brain that wants to survive and reproduce like everything else. What is there that makes them any less natural? Sounds more like plain old evolution to me. Did the connection break somewhere that I'm not aware of? You don't see 'abstract' ideas as a survival tactic or reproductive aid?
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
14. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-15 08:29 · Score: 0
  
  Our 'abstract' ideas come from a very normal, natural brain that wants to survive and reproduce like everything else. What is there that makes them any less natural? Sounds more like plain old evolution to me. Did the connection break somewhere that I'm not aware of? You don't see 'abstract' ideas as a survival tactic or reproductive aid?
  Awww, you're gonna puncture his unthinking hatred of humanity if you keep that up.
  What will the child do when he can no longer rant "MAN IZ TEH EEEEVIL!!!!"
15. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-15 14:15 · Score: 1
  
  memetics versus genetics
  genetics is the natural world, which governs us now in only irrelevant ways
  we are now governed by memetics, the transmission of ideas via language
  it's a new game dude
  
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16. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-15 14:16 · Score: 1
  
  i don't hate humanity
  your social skillset lesson for the evening is to find the ability to differentiate what happens inside your head, and what a person actually says, and how they might not be the same thing
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
17. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-15 15:12 · Score: 0
  
  So, you're certain that the development of memetics doesn't have a genetic basis in the human brain. We know enough now that we can exclude that? Wow. We really are 'super-natural' beings.... or at least you are.
  multi-cell organisms - new game
  pollinating plants - new game
  land animals - new game
  etc...
  It's a new game - so what? It's still nature doing what nature does. Nothing new to see here.
  The real issue is: long ago, we pondered how we do these things that other creatures didn't, translated that into a memetic that we are special and separate, invented of a human-like deity to explain that, promptly used that meme to dominate competing cultures/individuals, and have been cursed for millennia since. So much so, that now, we still can't see our ability to abstract as anything but a supernatural characteristic.
  Outside that non-trivial annoyance it makes for rational discussion, a seemingly useful, natural, evolutionary adaptation.
18. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by fustakrakich · 2012-09-15 17:22 · Score: 1
  
  That makes no sense at all. 'Memetics' (whatever the hell that is) still comes from the very plain old physical brain, and even if it is something 'special', it's still merely evolutionary. Eh, whatever... at least now I can see where you've gone totally off base... and it explains how humans can become so arrogant that they think they're 'above' nature. Sorry to tell you, bub, you're no different than any other life form in this universe. Culture = tribe... same old shit with a fancy name, nothing more.
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
19. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-15 21:03 · Score: 1
  
  genetics is just chemistry
  so it's like you are saying i'm stupid because i insist on talking about genetics when obviously it's all just chemistry, i'm arrogant for talking about this stupid thing called genetics
  it's a new game above and beyond genetics: the transmission of ideas between people, and their retention and modification across generations
  memetics
  relax, weirdo
  
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20. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-15 21:06 · Score: 1
  
  genetics is just chemistry
  so we can't talk about genetics? because it's just chemistry?
  we can talk about the transmission and retention and modification of ideas between people and across generations and cultures. it's a perfectly valid subject matter. the desire to reduce everything to one perspective is rather... non-adaptive of you
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
21. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by fustakrakich · 2012-09-16 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  You're full of it. Every single thought, idea, desire, emotion whatever you want to call it, memetics if you like, is a result of chemistry and electrical charges in the brain. I can poke an electrode in there and make you have any feeling or idea I want you to have. You are what your brain does and senses. You are under some impression there's some divine process from outside the universe involved, making it pretty obvious who the weirdo is. You still haven't explained where you think 'memetics' comes from. I doubt you can considering your unwillingness to accept basic science, but I'd like to see you try.. Let's find out if you're up to the task.
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
22. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by circletimessquare · 2012-09-16 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  what is wrong with you?
  chemistry is just physics. therefore, the field of chemistry is an invalid field of inquiry?
  
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  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
23. Re:if we can't get jurrasic park by fustakrakich · 2012-09-16 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  damn, you're just a prick teaser...
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Tooth Fairy by Delarth799 · 2012-09-14 13:30 · Score: 4, Funny

Wonder how much Ill get for putting this big ol tooth under the pillow
It's not a mammoth's by shugah · 2012-09-14 14:16 · Score: 1

It's Herb Caen's.

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Re:Stop work! NOT by ukemike · 2012-09-14 14:42 · Score: 3, Informative

Sadly for the Transit Authority, all work will have to be stopped and archeologists will have to be called in. I expect this project will lose at least two years in construction time.
From TFA
"Excavation work in the area was halted while the find was examined, but Allen said that because of the depth of the discovery, it's unsafe and unrealistic to send someone down to inspect the site, so digging was allowed to continue. "

--
-- QED
Still Playing Catchup to LA by rgmoore · 2012-09-14 14:52 · Score: 2

That's nice, but they've got a long way to go to compete with the La Brea Tar Pits. When they were building a new parking site for the LA County Museum, they found an almost complete mammoth skeleton, not just one tooth. That and a whole bunch of other incredibly cool fossils. One more reason to prefer Southern California.

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1. Re:Still Playing Catchup to LA by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-15 00:54 · Score: 1
  
  That's nice, but they've got a long way to go to compete with the La Brea Tar Pits. When they were building a new parking site for the LA County Museum, they found an almost complete mammoth skeleton, not just one tooth. That and a whole bunch of other incredibly cool fossils. THE ONLY reason to prefer Southern California.
  FTFY.
  When the Big One hits, I'm praying for southern California to fall into the ocean, and the rest to stay put.
Re:Even if the rest of the HSR project is never bu by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 15:48 · Score: 0

hey dipshit, transbay transit center isn't being built for HSR. Yes, it will allow HSR to connect if it ever happens, but the project's being done to replace a decrepit building and serve several bus and rail systems.
that, and a huge new mixed residential/retail/office skyscraper.
so in summary: suck it, troll. diaf.
A Tooth? Big Deal by fm6 · 2012-09-14 15:50 · Score: 1

Check out this guy, who turned up a few year ago in San Jose, about an hour's drive south of SF.
Elephants in SF, NOT by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 16:25 · Score: 1

Keep digging, you might find a Republican. Or the missing ballots from the last election.
Lost and found by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2012-09-14 16:41 · Score: 1

The 10-inch-long brown, black and beige [object found in downtown San Francisco]
Timmy! Put that thing down and get the hell away from it! TIMMY!

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They should re-date the tooth by maroberts · 2012-09-14 16:51 · Score: 0

Everyone knows the earth is only 6000 or so years old.
Its probably just one left by an English guy with a bad dentist........

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1. Re:They should re-date the tooth by rubycodez · 2012-09-15 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  British people have dentists?
Totally misread that... by T-Bucket · 2012-09-14 17:51 · Score: 1

When I first read the headline I read "Mammoth Tool Discovered in Downtown SF". I thought "Why is that news? plenty of THOSE around there"
It's just a prehistoric iPhone prototype . . . by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2012-09-14 20:34 · Score: 1

. . . left by an Apple employee in a bar in the Pleistocene epoch. The cops and Apple private detectives will come by soon to claim it.
And, yes, it has round corners.

broken in two and missing a chunk
The caveman wasn't holding it right.

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wooly mammoth + San Francisco.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-15 03:49 · Score: 0

i thought was Woz..
Mammoth Tooth by ChrisMaple · 2012-09-15 13:12 · Score: 1

Still too small for Nancy Pelosi's mouth.

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