Category Biology

On the trail of a snail?

The discoveries highlight how little we know about the smallest organisms and their biology

In 2022, a new species of land snail was discovered in Vietnam. It is the smallest known land snail on Earth, measuring the size of a grain of sand the scientific name of the recont-holder is Angustopila psammion which is derived from the Greek word for “grain of sand In 2015, Aonella nana a land snail found in Borneo, held the record for the world’s smallest land snail. The newly discovered species, a psammian has similar body dimensions but a smaller shell.

Another species. Angustopila coprologos was discovered in northem Laos and is slightly larger than a mammion. The shell of a coprologos is covered in pointy projections adorned with mud-like beads, which led researchers to speculate that it gathers fecal pellets on its shell to send biochemical information to other snails or to prevent drying out.

The discoveries highlight how little we know about the smallest organisms and their biology. The snails small size allows them to elude predators, but it presents challenges when producing eggs and fitting organs into their tiny bodies

There are some marine snails that are even tinier than these two newly discovered species. These sea snails can survive being so small because they do not risk drying out which is one of the primary downsides of being so small But as the size of a snall decreases, the ratio of its body’s surface area to volume goes up making it easier for water to evaporate. As snails must extend their moist bodies antsude their shells to move, they are especially vulnerable to drying out.

This risk of drying out may limit the evolution of the smallest land snails to certain regions with a stable climate or specific habitats such as caves where Juunidity remains high all year round. Some manne snails eject eggs and sperm into the water column, where most development occurs. Researchers are eager to learn more about these snails, such as their diet and what preys on them. There could be ting mites or millipedes yet to be discoverest, that snack on the snails. Ants or pseudoscorpions could be potential predators as well.

The research highlights the importance of tabamong which is the process of describing new species and where they fit into the tree of life. Despite not receiving much publicity, it remains crucial for inology and other branches of science. Taxonomists certainly play a vital role in identifying plants. fungi and animals. Without them, the scientific community would not know what they are dealing with.

Picture Credit : Google

What is meaning of term ‘Gene editing’?

Gene editing is all about making changes in your DNA sequence and thereby altering the genetic makeup. In other words, you customise your genetic makeup. So how is this carried out? Gene editing is performed using enzymes. Nucleases, which are enzymes are engineered to target a specific DNA sequence and cuts are introduced into the DNA strands by them. This aids in removing existing DNA sequences and inserting the replacement DNA. Gene editing will go a long way in targeting specific genes and thereby enable efficient treatment of diseases, according to doctors. With this, the genetic material gets added, removed, or altered in specific locales of the genome. It was in the late 1900s that the first gene editing technologies were developed. At present scientists use a tool called CRISPR to edit the DNA. But with this giant leap in medicine, there also come questions of ethical and social implications of genetically ‘engineering’ mankind. Should physical traits like eye colour or skin colour be altered?

Picture Credit : Google

Which are the major contributions of Sankar Ghosh?

Sankar Ghosh is an Indian-origin immunologist who has won several awards. He is the Silverstein and Hutt Family Professor of Microbiology and Chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.

He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He is interested in finding out the ways by which a cell controls the conversion of DNA to RNA. This helps us understand the immune system better. His team recently found new ways to diagnose critical conditions like sepsis faster. Sepsis is when the immune system starts attacking the organs in the body as a response to an infection.

Ghosh’s research has been published in the top scientific journals.

Ghosh was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in April 2021. He was advisor for the Board of Scientific Counsellors of the National Cancer Institute, the Scientific Review Board of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and the Scientific Review Council of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He was also member of the Board of Management of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru and in scientific advisory boards of Centre for Life Sciences (CLS) for Peking University and Tsinghua University, China, Shanghai Institute of Immunology, China, and Max-Planck Institute, Freiburg, Germany.

He is on the editorial board of journals including Immunity, Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He was also on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2011.

Picture Credit : google 

WHO WAS CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN?

Charles Robert Darwin was the father of evolution. The English naturalist, biologist and geologist may have devoted his lifetime to science, but he was also a romantic, a doting father and possessed a gentle disposition.

Darwin’s journey to being history’s favorite  biologist, however, had strange twists and turns. He tried to study medicine, but gave it up to pursue theology at Christ College. Cambridge.

But the study of the divine could not contain his ever inquisitive mind. While in college, he devoured journals and books in botany and geology in his free time. He loved gardening and had a special interest in collecting beetles. He learnt physics and geometry with great enthusiasm and noted down his observations diligently.

Darwin took great delight in William Wordsworth and ST Coleridge’s poetry, claiming to have read Wordsworth’s long poem Excursion twice. His favourite work of literature, however, was Paradise Lost by John Milton, which he carried along with him on his first voyage to South America in 1831 as a scientist in training to assist his mentor, botanist, geologist and priest John Henslow.

He nurtured a habit of writing, too. A meticulous diarist, he kept recording daily events, both scientific and personal. For six years of his life – between 40 and 46 years – he even made notes of his illnesses. He wrote about battling insomnia, restlessness, stomach pain, dizziness, rashes and melancholy among other issues.

He married the love of his life, Emma and had ten children with her. “Children are one of life’s greatest joys,” he wrote to a friend. The cover pages of the original manuscript draft of his iconic work, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, contain a number of doodles by his children. While many are caricatures of Darwin himself, one depicts a vegetable war – turnips, carrots, eggplant and more engaged in a fierce battle, while another shows a bright green frog, wearing pink shoes on an outing, carrying a blue umbrella. These drawings have been digitized by the American Museum of Natural History.

It took Darwin 20 years to publish his momentous work, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. On November 24, 1859, it appeared in bookstores in England. Priced at 15 shillings a copy, all the 1,250 copies were sold out on that very day. The book is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology, a revolutionary work that changed the course of science.

What truly kept Darwin going was his unrelenting passion for the natural world: He took in everything with childlike interest. On his first journey to South America, to study the natural world, he was extremely sea-sick. But he religiously collected birds, plants, skeletons, lizards, fossils and small animals, converting the ship into a museum of specimens.

Picture Credit : Google 

What is the oldest fossil flowering plant?

Researchers from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), have uncovered the earliest example of a flower bud in a 164 million-year-old plant fossil in China.

The fossil is 1.7 inches long and 0.8 inches wide. It contains a stem, a leafy branch, a bulbous fruit and a tiny flower bud around 3 sq mm in size. The researchers have named the new species Florigerminis jurassica.

There are two main types of plants: flowering plants (angiosperms) and non-flowering plants (gymnosperms). The flower bud and fruit in the fossil are clear indicators that F. jurassica was an angiosperm, the dominant plant type during the Jurassic period. Until now, fossil evidence showed that angiosperms did not arise until the Cretaceous period, between 66 million and 145 million years ago. The discovery firmly pushes back the emergence of flowering plants into the Jurassic period, between 145 million and 201 million years ago.

Picture Credit : Google 

Where can you find the gorilla?

The gorilla lives in the dense forests of equatorial Africa. It is the largest and most powerful of the ape family. The gorilla is extremely strong but it is a unduly disturbed. But other animals are very much afraid of it: few of them will dare to attack a gorilla because they know they would have the worse of the encounter.

A full-grown gorilla stands nearly 2 metres tall, with a massive body and very muscular arms and legs, and can weigh over 200 kilograms. Its jaws jut out and it has a broad, flattened nose and huge beetling eyebrows.

There are two main kinds of gorilla: the lowland gorilla that lives in the rain forests of western Africa, has a dark grey coat; the mountain gorilla which lives in the eastern regions of Zaire-Uganda borderland at altitudes of more than 3,000 metres, has black fur, Little is known about the ways of these big apes. This is because gorillas are very shy animals and also because they were first found only during the last century.

Gorillas usually live in groups which include both young and old. They build rough dwellings in trees a few metres above the ground. These dwellings look like platforms made of branches and twigs.

Gorillas do not spend all their lives in the trees. During the day they wander about on the ground looking for food. They feed on leaves, roots and fruit which the forest has in plenty. Gorillas walk in a crouching position, but every so often they stand up straight on their long hind legs.

 

Picture Credit : Google