Xlucine Posted January 31, 2017 Report Share Posted January 31, 2017 On 26/01/2017 at 10:07 AM, Toxn said: Since this is as close as we have to a general news thread for this subforum: http://gizmodo.com/diabolical-parasite-grows-inside-baby-wasps-and-eats-th-1791608651 This sort of stuff, of course, always reminds one of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siphonaptera It gets worse: Quote But why would the crypt-keeper force its host to plug the escape hole? It’s not clear, but Weinersmith and Egan found an enticing clue. In some cases, they saw that a third type of wasp—a fairy wasp—would emerge from infected branches. Fairy wasps are among the smallest animals alive, and some of them are hyperparasites of the family that includes the crypt-keeper. So, perhaps the crypt-keeper uses its host to plug the crypt, so it can’t get parasitized itself by an intruding fairy wasp. Or maybe the fairy wasp uses the presence of a head-plugged hole to find a crypt-keeper wasp to target. “We’re hoping to catch the fairy wasp this year, and get the whole system into the lab,” says Weinersmith. “It blows our minds that there could be yet another layer to all of this.” https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/inception-but-with-parasites/514211/ Like russian dolls, but horrifying. Scolopax and sevich 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted February 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2017 The wonderful world of wasps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted February 3, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2017 http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/02/01/the-flightosome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted February 15, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2017 It turns out that gene drives will be neither a panacea nor a plague: http://www.nature.com/news/gene-drives-thwarted-by-emergence-of-resistant-organisms-1.21397 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted March 6, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2017 DNA data storage is looking less and less like a gimmick: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6328/950 Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted June 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2017 This is the sort of thing that makes me think that we'll master synthetic biology long before we have a good lock on our own: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/06/09/the-great-untangling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted July 8, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2017 This is an insanely important finding (assuming it replicates): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170705123007.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2017 I'm always happy to see Kraig labs mentioned in the news, but I am still betting on spiber as the full package for the production of super-strong silks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2017 This sort of thing is interesting from an evolutionary perspective, but also shows how a lot of enzyme-based products may be developed in the future: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/09/22/the-blind-watchmakers-workshop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 30, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2019 So this is a banner day for plant biotech: https://www.igb.illinois.edu/article/scientists-engineer-shortcut-photosynthetic-glitch-boost-crop-growth-40 I remember learning about C3 plants and photorespiration in undergrad. Even then, we had people wondering if we could simply convert some of these crops to C4 photosynthesis and reap a 40% yield increase overnight. Well now it's done. Congratulations, humanity, crop scientists just solved world hunger for at least another generation so long as the pricks in charge allow GMOs to be rolled out broadly (sigh). From here on out it's your fault if you're hungry. Edit: I should mention at this point that the team that did it didn't make a C3 plant into a C4 plant. Instead they introduced alternate pathways for glycolate cycling and used RNAi to cut down glycolate transport. So this is true biological engineering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted April 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2019 Man I geek out about biomaterials sometimes: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190423133517.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoooSeR Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 This is interesting thing, although i sort off suspected that some genes are mutating less frequent just by the fact that i don't saw a lot of variations in human basic "acrhitecture", unlike other visible features of human body. Or, at least, this is my impression. Being able to understand a way for evolution for specific species is interesting possibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoooSeR Posted February 18, 2022 Report Share Posted February 18, 2022 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoooSeR Posted February 25, 2022 Report Share Posted February 25, 2022 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.