Undead worms
Who is the real undead "Xiao Qiang" in the biological world? A Japanese research team recently found that this title may be attributed to a flea called the brown-yellow blood tick.
After 30 minutes of being irradiated in a vacuum tube by a dense stream of electrons, they remained immortal and survived for two days after being released. Previously, tardigrades were known as the most tenacious creatures because they could withstand vacuum and ultraviolet radiation without dying, but they had to be dehydrated, while brown-yellow blood ticks did not have this requirement. Researchers believe that this property of the brown-yellow blood tick could be used for future Mars or Titan explorations.
The queen bee who was starved to death
Declining bee populations in the United States and elsewhere in the world have alarmed and confused scientists. Newly published findings by two research teams show that low concentrations of commonly used pesticides can have a serious impact on bee colonies.
The results of the experiments conducted by French researchers showed that pesticides make bees' minds unclear, making it harder for them to find their way home. Another study by British scientists showed that insecticides prevented bumblebees from feeding the colony enough to feed the new queen. After the insecticide is absorbed by the plant, it enters various tissues, including the nectar that the bees feed. Nicotine-based insecticide concentrations in nectar are not fatal, but low concentrations of nicotinoid insecticides make bees more susceptible to illness. Recently published experimental results show that nicotine-based insecticides make bees more susceptible to parasitic fungi. If this study confirms this finding, then these pesticides should certainly not be used because bees will eat them.
Imperfect perfection
The aphid-eating fly bears some resemblance to bumblebees, which is considered a way to protect itself from birds. But in the eyes of humans, their camouflage is quite sloppy, almost recognizable at a glance. Biologists have previously given the explanation that the world that the human eye can see is very different from the world that the bird's eye can see, and that the plausibility is enough to deceive birds. But a team of researchers at Carleton University in Canada gave a new answer. The researchers found that the large aphid-eating flies were the most skilled at camouflage, while the smaller houseflies were of the lowest caliber. Because birds usually prefer to hunt large flies, small flies that do not have to face fierce competition for survival are naturally lazy and perfunctory.
Strange sponges
The animals in the world can be described as diverse, but the holes in the body are probably only sponges. Many animals, including birds and fish of all kinds, have a "shelf" that supports and protects themselves – the bones in their bodies. But you may be surprised that many sponges commonly used in homes are the bones of a marine animal with great vitality.
Sponges live in the oceans, and sponges live in almost all the oceans of the world. Sponges come in all shapes and sizes, with the largest being more than 30 centimeters thick and the small ones less than 3 centimeters. The sponge doesn't move around like other animals, it just clings quietly to the rocks on the ocean floor. The sponge is full of small holes, and there are countless whip-like limbs in the holes that are constantly moving up and down, which draws seawater into the small holes and then discharges them from the large holes at the upper end of the body, so that the tiny organic matter in the seawater is digested in the process of pumping in and out. Its labor intensity is really large enough, and for every ton of seawater filtered, the weight increases by 20 grams.
Interestingly, although the sponge is a low-level animal, no animal in the ocean eats sponge, so many weak animals in the ocean, such as small shrimp, often hide in the sponge when encountering strong enemies. Sponges became a "refuge" for these weak animals.
The sponge we are usually familiar with, soft as cotton, can absorb a lot of water, very elastic. It is a "skeleton" that is cut off by divers in the sea or caught by a fisherman who is fished for a sponge, and then washed and dried to become a "skeleton". Don't underestimate it, these so-called "bone" sponges are a good material that people often use to scrub utensils, pack items and make sofa furniture.
What is even more exciting is that in recent years, scientists have found many previously unknown nucleosides in many sponge species, among which cytarabine has been officially used as an anti-cancer drug for clinical treatment. Japanese scientists have also isolated anti-mold active ingredients and a new type of highly effective anti-inflammatory compound in sponges.
Fish use evolution to fight cancer
The earliest amphibians evolved from fish. Recently, two groups of researchers at New York University and the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography in Massachusetts, while observing how fish face environmental degradation, especially against pollution from polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), found that fish continue to evolve because of environmental changes.
They study the super anti-pollution ability of fish, hoping to help humans fight environmental pollution. They studied a small Atlantic cod in the Hudson River in upstate New York and a medaka living in New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts, both of which are heavily contaminated with PCBs. These two species are the most tolerant of PCB contamination they have found.
PCBs are carcinogens that easily accumulate in adipose tissue, causing diseases of the brain, skin and internal organs, and affecting the nervous, reproductive and immune systems. These chemicals were widely used in the 20th century to make chemicals such as electrical insulation, coolants, sealants, and plasticizers. And these manufacturing plants often dump this toxic waste directly into rivers and lakes. They destroy the animals' immune system, causing hormonal imbalances in their bodies and growing tumors.
Dr. Woking and Dr. Hahn have found that certain fish are naturally evolving as the environment is polluted.
For example, cod has evolved resistance in just a few decades, which can preserve toxins in fat without causing damage to itself; medaka also has an unusual transcription molecule that can fight environmental pollution. After the mutation occurs, the ability of the mutant genes in the body to resist contaminants is as much as 5 times that of the previous mutation.
The changes in these fish are similar to the phenomenon in which some insects develop some resistance to pesticides, or bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics.
This characteristic of these two species of fish is reminiscent of a pepper moth in the United Kingdom. It also evolved in the face of growing industrial pollution, and the black color on its wings was formed to adapt to the trunks of trees covered with soot.
Beneficiaries of global warming
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Biologists have long known that temperature during hatching can affect the size, crawling speed and sex of lizards. But a new study from the University of Sydney suggests that intelligence may also be a variable. The researchers note that from 1997 to 2006, the nest temperature of a small insectivore lizard living in southeastern Australia rose by 1.5°C. To investigate the effect of temperature changes on lizard pups, the researchers placed one part of the lizard eggs incubated at 22 °C and the other part at 16 °C. The results showed that the cognitive abilities of the small lizards that hatched in the hotter environment were significantly higher than those hatched in the cooler environment, and they were better at learning from failure and more able to adapt to unfamiliar environments.
The advantage of big eyes
The so-called eyes resemble brass bells, which are used to describe the eyes of giant squid. The giant squid living in the waters near Antarctica is the largest known invertebrate, with eyes up to 27 centimeters in diameter, and is definitely the king of big eyes in the animal world. What is such a big eye for? A team of researchers at Lund University in Sweden recently found that only with such a giant eye can the giant squid find traces of its only natural enemy, sperm whales, in a dark water 600 meters below sea level. Although unlike sperm whales, which can be locked on to a target with the help of an echo positioning system, a pair of large eyes allows the giant squid to detect the approaching sperm whale from 120 meters away, so as to gain enough escape time.
The power of the Tyrannosaurus Rex
After scanning and computer modeling the fossil bones of the Tyrannosaurus rex on display at the Manchester Museum in the United Kingdom, two biologists at the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester deduced that the hind teeth of an adult Tyrannosaurus rex could instantaneously explode with a bite force of 35,640 to 57,158 newtons. Wondering what it's like to be bitten so hard? Imagine being seated by an elephant. The researchers pointed out that the bite force of Tyrannosaurus rex gradually strengthens with age, although previous predictions have shown that small tyrannosaurus rex may only be able to survive on scavenger, but once adult, it has the power to bite off the necks of other large dinosaurs.