Here is something that emerges from stories that have recently appeared in journals and on scientific sites, including news that updates some of my previous articles. We note that the more details there are that scientists observe, the less discussions on evolution. Why would it be? Another point worthy of note: the more sophistication in biological engineering, the more scientists want to imitate it.
Robot jump success
One of the most fascinating animal stories I pointed out concerned Springtails (here). These miniature gymnasts, ranging from 2 to 6 mm long, make jumps of Olympic quality, accelerating up to 80 g, turning at a phenomenal pace of 290 revolutions per second. Harvard Success has reported to imitate the spring tail with small robots which can jump 1.4 m, 23 times their length, using a furcula which takes place quickly resembling the device that the spring tails use. It’s not as tiny but it is cute to watch in a video clip that accompanies it.
Robert J. Wood’s laboratory previously reported imitating the Mantis Shrimp’s Club, a device that I described here. Spring shrimps and Mantis shrimp use “spring activation mediated by a lock, in which potential energy is stored in an elastic element … which can be deployed in milliseconds as a catapult”. Does he believe that it has evolved? Difficult to say. The press release only indicates that the inspiring spring tail is omnipresent “both spatially and temporally through the evolutionary scales”. It could be interpreted as a stasis.
Our nose overwhelmed with bubbles
Feel your nose. New scientist Announced a new fact on this monument on our facial card: “Your ears and the nose are made from fabrics that look like bubble paper.” It is a different form of cartilage of that found in other parts of the body. MAKSIM PLIKUS in UC Irvine found it by accident during the study of the mouse ears, lending support for the science law of Young: “All the great scientific discoveries are made by mistake.”
Our bubble envelope cartilage, which the UCI team calls lipocartilage because of its fat content, does not appear when tight, or does good shipping equipment, but the UCI team thinks that “harassment could make facial surgery, such as the reshaction of the nose, easier”. An element of ethical concern appeared in the article: “The team also found lipocartils in human ear and nose samples taken from medically aborted fetuses.”
Magnetic browsers
A sea turtle newborn disappears in the waves. How does he know where to go? And how does he know the return of years or decades later? These questions were explored ten years ago in Ilulsra Media’s film Living waters: Intelligent design in the oceans of the earth. He suggested that the turtles follow magnetic paths on an inherited map. Now scientists from North Carolina University in Chapel Hill have filled “an important gap in our knowledge” by confirming that turtles can memorize magnetic signatures. “Thanks to controlled experiences, the research team has shown that Caouannes turtles can indeed learn and remember the magnetic fields of the areas where they receive food.” By the way, it was good to hear Deakin University that the endangered turtles make a return thanks to the conservation efforts.
The discovery of UNC adds an understanding of animal migration in general. “More broadly, these results could apply to a wide range of migratory animals based on magnetic clues for navigation,” they said. Indeed, previous news of the University of Oldenburg have found that the ants of the desert memorize their nest location when they have learning walks paying attention to the polarity of the Earth’s magnetic field. Changing the inclination of artificial magnetic fields had no effect, they found, but the change in the azimut made the goal of the ants in the wrong direction. However, everything is not lost; A recent article in Current biology The reports according to which the ants of the desert use a “variety of navigation tools” in their learning walks, including the integration of the path: “Once the learning walks are complete, the ants can reach the nest from any direction.” To find out more about the remarkable capacities of animals to navigate on the magnetic field of the earth, see the excellent book by Eric Cassell Animal algorithms Posted by Discovery Institute Press.
Zoom on the Stator Flagellaire
Call emblematic bacterial flagella “Incredible natural machines!”, news From the Nagoya Institute of Technology has announced new details in the stator to an unprecedented resolution. Use of cryoem (see my article here About super-resolution microscopy), Japanese scientists looked in sodium ion channels that are arranged in a ring around the stator. They have determined that these channels contain “key molecular cavities for sodium ions” which “act like size -based filters that allow the supply of sodium ions – but not other ions – in identified cavities”. This is remarkable since some flagellar motors operate on protons, which are smaller.
As the hydrated sodium ions circulate through the cavities, explains an accompaniment video, they generate conformational changes, “transfer of mechanical energy to the rotor to run the engine”. The team has identified many specific amino acid residues in the channel involved in the size filtering. Nevertheless, “the mechanism of the way in which the ion flow leads to rotation is still unknown”, their paper in PNA said. While scientists from around the world continue to collect detailed clues on this molecular out-brass engine, it is exciting to see them approach the secret of the generation of torque. And so far, as illustrated by this article without evolution, the irreducible complexity has increased since Michael Behe attracted this emblematic engine to our attention in 1996.
Machine recycling
Some eukaryotes alternate between amiboid and flogging forms. Swiss scientists publishing Embo reportsExamined a shape trigger: “Eukaryote early Naegleria Gruberi Can transform a form of amiboid life devoid of centrioles and flagelles in a flagellae form where these elements are present, can be transformed, followed by a reversion to the amiboid state. When the time comes to recycle the eukaryotal flagel (different in the design of the bacterial flagellum), the axonths “bend on the surface of the cells and merge in a few milliseconds With the plasma membrane ”(I emphasize). It is a radically fast recycling! Then, a molecular machine called spastine cuts the axonmes into similar pieces and sends them to the lysosome, where the molecules are dismantled to reuse.
Researchers also found that centrioles, some parts of the basal bodies of flagelles inside, are also recycled by lysosomes or proteasomes. Some centrioles, however, are paid outside the cell. “Remarkably, we have discovered that outsourced centrioles can be absorbed by another cell,” they noted. What they found is probably not unique. “Collectively, these results reveal fundamental mechanisms governing the elimination of essential cellular constituents in Naegleria This can work widely in eukaryotic systems. The evolution only appeared in the newspaper but was not essential to science.
Update of wired bacteria
Finally, new research on wired bacteria (see here) was published in PNA in January. A study by the Naval Research Laboratory “presents the direct measure of the transport of protons along the long Desulfobceaeor wired bacteria. It is not only electrons that can travel on these miniature threads, but also protons. And they go for long distances. (Well, that is to say if you consider 100 micrometers as a long distance.) Why is it important? “The observation of protonic conductivity in wired bacteria”, they say, “presents the possibilities of studying the importance of long-distance proton transport in microbial ecosystems and potentially building biotic or biomimetic scaffolds to interface with materials via bridges or channels mediated by protons.” The transfer of protons, according to them, can play an essential role in ecology at the microphone. And as they point out, the imitation of nature in biomimetics remains a hot pursuit. Has Darwinism helped? “However, despite these hypotheses, the evolutionary benefit of this phenomenon, its role in environmental contexts and its role in microbial interaction remain unknown.” Let the engineers understand it.