Hacker News with Generative AI: Biology

Jumping Spiders Can Think Ahead, Plan Detours (2016) (nationalgeographic.com)
With brains the size of a sesame seed, jumping spiders may seem like mental lightweights.
We can, must, and will simulate nematode brains (asteriskmag.com)
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the smallest brain we know. Today, we finally have the tools to pull it off.
CERN scientists find evidence of quantum entanglement in sheep (home.cern)
CERN scientists find evidence of quantum entanglement in sheep
Glutamate Unlocks Brain Cell Channels to Enable Thinking and Learning (neurosciencenews.com)
In an effort to understand how brain cells exchange chemical messages, scientists say they have successfully used a highly specialized microscope to capture more precise details of how one of the most common signaling molecules, glutamate, opens a channel and allows a flood of charged particles to enter.
10 Lizards were smuggled into Cincinnati in a sock. Now there are thousands (nationalgeographic.com)
For more than 70 years, thousands of common wall lizards, known as Lazarus lizards, from Europe have made Cincinnati their home. Even through record-low temperatures and snowfall, they’ve managed to survive—and multiply. But how did these Mediterranean reptiles gain such a foothold in a Midwestern city? It all started with a 10-year-old boy and a sock full of lizards.
Pregnancy's true toll on the body: birth study paints detailed picture (nature.com)
Biologists have built up one of the most detailed pictures ever of the changes that occur in women’s bodies before and after pregnancy, by pooling and studying around 44 million physiological measurements from more than 300,000 births.
SHH – Sonic Hedgehog Protein (wikipedia.org)
Sonic hedgehog protein (SHH) is a major signaling molecule of embryonic development in humans and other animals, encoded by the SHH gene.
Researchers bring prehistoric algae back to life (phys.org)
Fully active again even after around 7,000 years without light and oxygen in the Baltic Sea sediment: the diatom Skeletonema marinoi.
The Biology of B-Movie Monsters (2003) (lib.uchicago.edu)
Size has been one of the most popular themes in monster movies, especially those from my favorite era, the 1950s. The premise is invariably to take something out of its usual context--make people small or something else (gorillas, grasshoppers, amoebae, etc.) large--and then play with the consequences. However, Hollywood's approach to the concept has been, from a biologist's perspective, hopelessly naïve. Absolute size cannot be treated in isolation; size per se affects almost every aspect of an organism's biology.
Giant, fungus-like organism may be a completely unknown branch of life (livescience.com)
The Ocean Sunfish: Why the Rant Is Wrong (2017) (imgur.com)
Plants can take up CWD-causing prions from soil in lab. What happens if eaten? (cidrap.umn.edu)
When Christopher Johnson, PhD, set out to study whether lab mice fed prion-contaminated plants developed neurodegenerative disease, he expected the plants to take up only small prion clusters, but they absorbed large clusters characteristic of prion diseases in deer and other animals.
Fish odor syndrome – A rare metabolic condition that makes sweat smell like fish (livescience.com)
C. Elegans: The worm that no computer scientist can crack (wired.com)
One of the simplest, most over-studied organisms in the world is the C. elegans nematode. For 13 years, a project called OpenWorm has tried—and utterly failed—to simulate it.
The mysterious flow of fluid in the brain (quantamagazine.org)
Encased in the skull, perched atop the spine, the brain has a carefully managed existence. It receives only certain nutrients, filtered through the blood-brain barrier; an elaborate system of protective membranes surrounds it. That privileged space contains a mystery. For more than a century, scientists have wondered: If it’s so hard for anything to get into the brain, how does waste get out?
The Mysterious Flow of Fluid in the Brain (quantamagazine.org)
Encased in the skull, perched atop the spine, the brain has a carefully managed existence. It receives only certain nutrients, filtered through the blood-brain barrier; an elaborate system of protective membranes surrounds it. That privileged space contains a mystery. For more than a century, scientists have wondered: If it’s so hard for anything to get into the brain, how does waste get out?
Prolonged torpor in mice slows epigenetic changes that accompany aging (medicalxpress.com)
RNA function follows form – why is it so hard to predict? (nature.com)
AlphaFold’s highly accurate structural models transformed protein biology,but RNA lags behind.
Does it matter whether SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab? (marginalrevolution.com)
Does it matter whether SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab in Wuhan or had natural zoonotic origins? I think on the margin it does matter.
A Brief History of the Miracle Bacterium (asimov.press)
At 1:15 p.m. on Monday, August 8th, 1904, a British physician named M. H. Gordon took some soil he had “richly impregnated with a living emulsion” of the virulent bacterium,1 Serratia marcescens, and sprinkled it near a lamp post in front of the U.K. House of Commons.
North American spider species alters its webs to deal with urban noise pollution (nytimes.com)
Researchers have found evidence that a common North American spider species alters its webs to deal with urban noise pollution.
Carl Linnaeus's note-taking innovations (jillianhess.substack.com)
Even if you know nothing about the Swedish doctor, professor, and naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), you probably know about his greatest innovation: binomial nomenclature.
We've entered a forever war with bird flu (theverge.com)
Avian influenza is “evolving in ways we haven’t seen before,” says Martha Nelson, a computational biologist and staff scientist researching pathogen evolution at the National Institutes of Health — one of many scientists who have been monitoring the global H5N1 outbreak.
Metabolism Can Shape Cells' Destinies (quantamagazine.org)
A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life.
600M years of shared environmental stress response found in algae and plants (phys.org)
Without plants on land, humans could not live on Earth.
The Barnacle Goose Myth (wikipedia.org)
The barnacle goose myth is a widely-reported historical misconception about the breeding habits of the barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis) and brant goose (Branta bernicla).
Scientists program stem cells to mimic first days of embryonic development (news.ucsc.edu)
First Known Photographs of Living Specimens (inaturalist.org)
To my great surprise, I just realised it's been more than two and a half years since I last wrote a journal post for this project!
Sex differences in brain structure are present at birth (psypost.org)
New research published in Biology of Sex Differences has found that sex differences in brain structure are already present at birth and remain relatively stable during early postnatal development.
Direct measurement of male germline mutation rate using sequential sperm samples (nature.com)
Mutations that accumulate in the human male germline with age are a major driver of genetic diversity and contribute to genetic diseases.