Latest Posts by mikrobiotch - Page 6
plasmodial slime mold consuming a Trametes fungus by Michael Harz
The fossil record is biased against bats. The flying mammals are small, making their fossilized remains very hard to find. And their light skeletons—ideal for flying around—mean it takes special circumstances for their bodies to be preserved. And yet, against these odds, paleontologists recently uncovered the exceptionally complete skeleton of what now stands as the earliest known bat.
To date, the most complete early bat fossils have come from an area paleontologists call Fossil Lake in Wyoming. The rock layers are world-famous for containing beautifully preserved fish, birds, mammals and other organisms that lived in the area about 52 million years ago. Among the stunning fossils recovered from these rocks, Naturalis Biodiversity Center paleontologist Tim Rietbergen and colleagues report Wednesday in PLOS One, are fossils of a new bat species the researchers have named Icaronycteris gunnelli. By comparing this new species with other early bats, paleontologists are beginning to develop a deeper understanding of how bats spread around the world in that period.
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A microbe discovered in a volcanic hot spring gobbles up carbon dioxide “astonishingly quickly”, according to the scientists who found it.
The researchers hope to utilise microbes that have naturally evolved to absorb CO2 as an efficient way of removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Ending the burning of fossil fuels is critical in ending the climate crisis, but most scientists agree CO2 will also need to be sucked from the air to limit future damage.
The new microbe, a cyanobacteria, was discovered in September in volcanic seeps near the Italian island of Vulcano, where the water contains high levels of CO2. The researchers said the bug turned CO2 into biomass faster than any other known cyanobacteria.
In February the team also explored hot springs in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, US, where levels of CO2 are even higher. Those results are now being analysed. The researchers said all their data on microbes would be published and made available to other scientists as a database that pairs DNA sequences with banked samples of the bacteria.
Dr Braden Tierney, at Weill Cornell Medical College and Harvard Medical School, said: “Our lead collaborator at Harvard isolated this organism that grew astonishingly quickly, compared to other cyanobacteria.”
“The project takes advantage of 3.6bn years of microbial evolution,” he said. “The nice thing about microbes is that they are self-assembling machines. You don’t have that with a lot of the chemical approaches [to CO2 capture].”
The new microbe had another unusual property, Tierney said: it sinks in water, which could help collect the CO2 it absorbs.
But the microbe was not a silver bullet, Tierney said. “There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to climate change and carbon capture. There will be circumstances where the tree is going to outperform microbes or fungi. But there will also be circumstances where you really want a fast-growing aquatic microbe that sinks,” he said. That might include large, carbon-capturing ponds, he said. The microbe might also be able to produce a useful bioplastic.
germophobes stay winning
Botox is made with botulinum toxin,, ok.
clostridium botulinum is anaerobic bacteria. form spores that release neurotoxin. cause paralysis
can be evident in honey. home canned foods. no oxygen
Scientists from BGI-Research developed a new version of the Cultivated Genome Reference (CGR), a repository of high-quality draft genomes of the human gut microbiome. The current version of CGR, which is CGR2, has been further expanded to incorporate numerous high-quality draft genomes generated from cultivated bacteria. CGR2 classifies previously unidentified species and uncovers the functional and genomic diversity of bacterial strains. An in-depth analysis of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAzymes) reveals the phyla with the largest and most diverse repertoires of these enzymes. CGR2 also enabled the identification of genes involved in the synthesis of secondary metabolites in the gut microbiome. The unraveling of the gut microbiome genomic landscape will enable the development of therapeutics and provide a deep insight into the evolution of the human gut microbiome.
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An innovative artificial intelligence program called CLEAN (contrastive learning–enabled enzyme annotation) has the ability to predict enzyme activities based on their amino acid sequences, even if the enzymes are unfamiliar or inadequately understood. The researchers have reported that CLEAN has surpassed the most advanced tools in terms of precision, consistency, and sensitivity. However, a deeper understanding of enzymes and their roles would be beneficial in a number of disciplines, including genetics, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, medicine, and industrial materials.
The scientists are using the protein language to forecast their performance, similar to how ChatGPT uses written language data to generate predictive phrases. Almost all scientists desire to comprehend the purpose of a protein as soon as they encounter a new protein sequence. Furthermore, this tool will aid researchers in promptly recognizing the suitable enzymes needed to manufacture chemicals and materials for various applications, be it in biology, medicine, or industry.
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so the current main character of twitter are the algae tanks that are meant to function as "liquid trees" if u wanna call it that and people are very mad at them despite them being a cool and potentially useful concept. before anyone gets mad on this post in case it gets Literally Any Notes, notes:
algae is really really good at producing oxygen. more efficient than trees actually. it already produces like, grain of salt bc im getting a few diff numbers here from google, 50ish percent of the oxygen on earth. dw shes good at this.
no the scientists dont want to REPLACE trees thats just a shitty headline. the actual potential uses of these are plopping them down in places where you cant put another tree for whatever reason (including "theres a tree right there and it needs space"), in addition to trees bc as stated its Even Better at oxygen making, or when youre waiting for the trees to grow bc. they take a while.
if the tanks are as efficient as the scientists claim, one tank=two 10 year old trees. thats good! nice supplement to trees while youre waiting for them to grow and shit.
the one pictured also is a bench with solar lights and ports to charge your phone. thats nice!
apparently no maintenance isnt hard u just remove some of the algae once a month (which can then be used as fertilizer!) add some water and boom ur good 👍
stop saying "trees are free and require no maintenance" thats just false. the cost and maintenance are worth it!! but they do in fact have Cost And Maintenance. many good things in society are like this! please appreciate the work that goes into trees actually ty
again. not replacing trees. In Addition To. Alongside. Friends. <3.
ANYWAY, with those common things no one on twitter seems to understand out of the way, honestly im frustrated but (mostly) not ANGRY at the ppl not understanding that stuff. like, if u read past the headline u would know it, and i really wish yall would, but hey at least i understand being mislead by that awful fucking headline. i get it!!
what i am fucking pissed about is the people calling it ugly and saying no one wants slime tanks fuck you i DO want a slime tank
"but ohhh it looks like SLIME and DYSTOPIAN and blah blah blah" fuck YOU that slime is my BOYFRIENDS and i LOVE THEM. look at that gastly green color! it looks straight out of a mad scientists lab! its BEAUTIFUL!
i love algae and they are my friend and my lover and i will not stand for this fucking slander. you are all just too fucking weak to see the beauty in their hard work. you are blinded by tree propaganda, and just like bee propaganda you forget that there are OTHERS working day in and day out too. i love trees and (i LOOOOOVE bees btw) but do NOT forget the hard work done by algae.
if these things are as efficient as they claim then YES AMAZING LOVE IT, throw the cool slime benches hither and thither! mayhaps decorate them with a lil cool etched art (without compromising the efficiency) or some Fun Facts about how cool algae is and how NO THEY ARENT TREE REPLACEMENTS THEYRE TREE FRIENDS!!! THEY ARE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!! i would love nothing more than sitting at a bus stop under the green glow of my algae friends and i have been on this fucking train since i first saw cool concept art of this shit like a decade ago on tumblr. you CANNOT convince me giant green tanks of slop are anything BUT perfection.
and if anything i think they should fucking lean in to the slime thing. make some that look like giant test tubes. get nickelodeon to sponser a couple. teenage mutant ninja turtles crossover. stop listening to the fucking normies trying to convince you that Slime Bad and think of the fucking posslimbilities. EMBRACE THE SLIME.
What are Phytoplankton and Why Are They Important?
Breathe deep… and thank phytoplankton.
Why? Like plants on land, these microscopic creatures capture energy from the sun and carbon from the atmosphere to produce oxygen.
Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, both salty and fresh. Though tiny, these creatures are the foundation of the aquatic food chain. They not only sustain healthy aquatic ecosystems, they also provide important clues on climate change.
Let’s explore what these creatures are and why they are important for NASA research.
Phytoplankton are diverse
Phytoplankton are an extremely diversified group of organisms, varying from photosynthesizing bacteria, e.g. cyanobacteria, to diatoms, to chalk-coated coccolithophores. Studying this incredibly diverse group is key to understanding the health - and future - of our ocean and life on earth.
Their growth depends on the availability of carbon dioxide, sunlight and nutrients. Like land plants, these creatures require nutrients such as nitrate, phosphate, silicate, and calcium at various levels. When conditions are right, populations can grow explosively, a phenomenon known as a bloom.
Phytoplankton blooms in the South Pacific Ocean with sediment re-suspended from the ocean floor by waves and tides along much of the New Zealand coastline.
Phytoplankton are Foundational
Phytoplankton are the foundation of the aquatic food web, feeding everything from microscopic, animal-like zooplankton to multi-ton whales. Certain species of phytoplankton produce powerful biotoxins that can kill marine life and people who eat contaminated seafood.
Phytoplankton are Part of the Carbon Cycle
Phytoplankton play an important part in the flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the ocean. Carbon dioxide is consumed during photosynthesis, with carbon being incorporated in the phytoplankton, and as phytoplankton sink a portion of that carbon makes its way into the deep ocean (far away from the atmosphere).
Changes in the growth of phytoplankton may affect atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which impact climate and global surface temperatures. NASA field campaigns like EXPORTS are helping to understand the ocean's impact in terms of storing carbon dioxide.
Phytoplankton are Key to Understanding a Changing Ocean
NASA studies phytoplankton in different ways with satellites, instruments, and ships. Upcoming missions like Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) - set to launch Jan. 2024 - will reveal interactions between the ocean and atmosphere. This includes how they exchange carbon dioxide and how atmospheric aerosols might fuel phytoplankton growth in the ocean.
Information collected by PACE, especially about changes in plankton populations, will be available to researchers all over the world. See how this data will be used.
The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) is integrated onto the PACE spacecraft in the cleanroom at Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA
"Wherever you are on your journey to the microcosmos, the odds are high that you'll run into a diatom. They're both abundant and easy to spot because of the shells they encase themselves in. The results are beautiful, exacting geometries that create a living kaleidoscope in the microcosmos. Even if you lived your entire life without ever seeing a diatom, without ever hearing the word "diatom", you would still be living a life that's shaped by them... all the way down to the oxygen you breathe, thanks in no small part to their outsized contribution to the world's photosynthesis."
Journey to the Microcosmos- How Diatoms Build Their Beautiful Shells
Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs
Astrionella 630x, Bacillaria paxillifer 200x, Diatom 630x, Diatom 630x, Diatom frustule 630x, Diatoms 630x
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lil chemistry moodboard for motivation 🧪🥼
There are few places on Earth as isolated as Trindade island, a volcanic outcrop a three- to four-day boat trip off the coast of Brazil.
So geologist Fernanda Avelar Santos was startled to find an unsettling sign of human impact on the otherwise untouched landscape: rocks formed from the glut of plastic pollution floating in the ocean.
Santos first found the plastic rocks in 2019, when she traveled to the island to research her doctoral thesis on a completely different topic—landslides, erosion and other “geological risks.”
She was working near a protected nature reserve known as Turtle Beach, the world’s largest breeding ground for the endangered green turtle, when she came across a large outcrop of the peculiar-looking blue-green rocks.
Intrigued, she took some back to her lab after her two-month expedition.
Analyzing them, she and her team identified the specimens as a new kind of geological formation, merging the materials and processes the Earth has used to form rocks for billions of years with a new ingredient: plastic trash.
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Metabolic Modeling of Gut Bacteria in Fish Fed Agricultural Waste: Implications for Human Health (Bioinformatic work)
It's not the best "microbiology" art, but it has a very interesting background. Two bacteria from two different clinical cases were inoculated on the TSCB medium. This metallic blue spilling bacterium is of course Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The yellow one (positive reaction on TSCB medium) is Vibrio metschnikovii isolated from chronic UTI in a dog. It was an unusual microbiological diagnosis. But what can you do when even your dog has a better holiday than you? Problems with urination (in this dog) began just after returning from the Mediterranean, the owners and the dog intensively used the charms of warm and salty water.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most pleasant bacteria to identify from a microbiologist's perspective. In turn, from the veterinarian's point of view - one of the worst to treat.
The Baum laboratory along with colleagues at Imperial College London, UK, previously identified a new class of potent antimalarial compounds, belonging to a family of sulfonamides. These compounds kill the parasite only when it is in a specific sexual phase of its life cycle, rapidly stopping it from being able to infect a mosquito and, therefore, preventing any subsequent human infection.
In their new Disease Models & Mechanisms article, Baum and colleagues explored exactly how these compounds work, which is an essential step before the compounds can be developed for testing in patients.
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Cancer is one of the prominent causes of death globally, and discovering new methods to prevent and cure it is important for public health. Understanding the particular nutrients that cancer cells require is one of the strategies researchers are investigating to fight the disease.
Arginine is one of the important amino acids produced by our bodies naturally, and it is also abundantly found in food sources such as fish, meat, and nuts. According to the research published in Science Advances, cancer cells also need arginine to survive. It is possible to make tumors more susceptible to the body’s natural immune system and improve the effectiveness of treatment by depriving them of this nutrient.
The lack of this amino acid, which the researchers discovered to exist in various types of human cancers, forces the cancer cells to adapt. Cancer cells alter specific proteins to improve their ability to absorb arginine and other amino acids when their levels of that amino acid fall. Amazingly, these cells also induce mutations that lessen their reliance on arginine in an effort to keep growing.
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Petri dish after being exposed to common household air. Includes Aspergillum, penicillium, green & black rhysopus, & stachybotrum moldm
