Biology

Researchers have announced the discovery of an ancient mud volcano 400m deep in the Barents Sea, and they think it’s a sanctuary for vulnerable Arctic species.

"Today we have discovered something exceptional,” says Professor Giuliana Panieri from The Arctic University of Tromso (UiT) in Ocean Census’ video sharing the discovery of the Borealis Mud Volcano.

"One would think that a volcano was not the most hospitable place for living organisms,” says Panieri. But using REV Ocean’s remotely operated vehicle, they could observe the volcano closely and learned that the crusts around its crater provide animals with habitat, shelter and food.

Anyone read this? Unsure if I should read it — I have always been fascinated by the philosophy of science in relation to medicine and psychology — maybe it would be interesting to see how medicine differs from biology?

Far from being solo operators, most single-celled microbes are in complex relationships. In the ocean, the soil and your gut, they might battle and eat each other, exchange DNA, compete for nutrients, or feed on one another’s by-products. Sometimes they get even more intimate: One cell might slip inside another and make itself comfortable. If the conditions are just right, it might stay and be welcomed, sparking a relationship that could last for generations — or billions of years. This phenomenon of one cell living inside another, called endosymbiosis, has fueled the evolution of complex life.

Examples of endosymbiosis are everywhere. Mitochondria, the energy factories in your cells, were once free-living bacteria. Photosynthetic plants owe their sun-spun sugars to the chloroplast, which was also originally an independent organism. Many insects get essential nutrients from bacteria that live inside them. And last year researchers discovered the “nitroplast,”(opens a new tab) an endosymbiont that helps some algae process nitrogen.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/33597552

Summary from the 404 media newsletter

Heart cockles, a group of marine molluscs, contain little communities of algae in their shells as part of a symbiotic relationship; the algae get shelter and protection, and the cockles get algae-processed nutrients.

Now, scientists have discovered that cockle shells have a host of mind-boggling adaptations to keep these algae happy, including windows that offer “the first example of fiber optic cable bundles in a living creature.”

“We show that the fibrous prismatic crystals act like parallel bundles of fiber optic cables in the shell windows, not just transmitting light but projecting high-resolution images through the window,” that have “a resolution of >100 lines/mm,” said researchers led by Dakota McCoy of the University of Chicago.

From the article in the link above:

Fig. 1: Heart cockles (Corculum cardissa and Corculum spp.) are asymmetrical, photosymbiotic bivalves.

Fig. 2: Transparent windows allow heart cockle shells to transmit 11–62% of photosynthetically active radiation (mean = 31%) and significantly screen out UV radiation (mean = 14%, range = 5–28%).

Key findings

Day vs. night habitat use: Barred owls' home ranges were significantly larger at night than during the day, indicating different habitat needs between their active and resting periods. The research emphasizes that preserving green spaces in urban areas can have profound effects on nocturnal and diurnal wildlife.

Energy efficiency in preferred habitats: Owls expended less energy in their preferred nocturnal habitats, suggesting that these areas provide higher-quality resources.

Affluent neighborhoods attract barred owls: Barred owls in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, showed a marked preference for habitats in affluent neighborhoods, supporting the "luxury effect"—the tendency for wealthier areas to harbor greater biodiversity.

Implications for Urban Design: The study advocates for providing and protecting habitat for barred owls to keep this important species, other forest-associated species, and the ecosystem services they provide present and functioning in urban areas. The study also advocates for the equitable distribution of green spaces in cities, especially in less affluent areas, to promote biodiversity throughout the urban landscape.

Irene Manton was a pioneer of electron microscopy.

She produced the first diagrammatic reconstruction of the 9+2 microtubular structure of the #cilium in 1952. When she showed her beautiful micrographs at international meetings, the audience would cheer and break into applause.

And she mortgaged her house to buy an electron microscope!

https://www.embrc.eu/newsroom/news/irene-manton-algal-cell-biologist-and-her-electron-microscope

#microscopy @biology #WomenInScience #science

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/53510

Nice piece on a large zooplankton survey by Leonid Moroz in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/05/ocean-genome-atlas-project-scientists-plankton-dna-secrets-human-biology-sailing-boats @biology #plankton