Podcasts about eukaryotes

Matters Microbial #79: How Amoebae Beat the Heat February 20, 2025 Today, Dr. Angela Oliverio, Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Syracuse University, joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss what her research group has been learning about extremophilic single-celled eukaryotes! Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: Angela Oliverio Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode An overview of protists.   A wondrous video of the types of protists to be found seemingly everywhere. A video about amoebae and how YOU can find them.   A video about the testate amoebae mentioned in this podcast. An essay about the testate amoebae. A very old article on temperature limits to eukaryotic life. A more modern article on this topic. An article from Dr. Oliverio's group on the temperature limits to eukaryotic life. The Mullin laboratory at UCSF does remarkable visualization. Genomics and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. How mycoplasma move, with remarkable videos. A member of Dr. Oliverio's lab creates beautiful glass art at this Etsy shop. A wonderful local news report on Dr. Oliverio and coworker's research. A nice overview of Dr. Oliverio's research interest in extremophilic protists. An article from Dr. Oliverio's group explaining why we should all care about extremophilic eukaryotes. Dr. Oliverio's research website (and SO worth your time) Dr. Oliverio's faculty website. Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com

Archaea are one of the three domains of life on earth, but these organisms are much more mysterious and less understood than either Bacteria or Eukaryotes.  Dr. Alex Bisson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Brandeis University. His laboratory studies Archaea, primarily focusing on Haloarchaea. Dr. Bisson discusses how Archaea are able to shape-shift from one cell shape to another, how Haloarchaea are able to grow at extremely high salt concentrations, how Archaea cope with being “squishy”, how common polyploidy (multiple copies of chromosomes) is among Archaea, how Haloarchaea are able to desalinate soil to allow trees to grow, how Haloarchaea can lie dormant inside Himalayan Pink Salt, and how Boston is an intellectually stimulating place to do science. Dr. Salvador Almagro-Moreno joined microTalk on this episode, which was supported by Gordo Sheepsey's My Brave Little Autoclave. Participants: Karl Klose, Ph.D. (UTSA). Alexandre Bisson, Ph.D. (Brandeis University) Janakiram Seshu, Ph.D. (UTSA). Salvador Almagro-Moreno (University of Central Florida)

* List of Discoveries Squeezing Evolution: Did you know that dinosaurs ate rice before rice evolved? That turtle shells existed forty million years before turtle shells began evolving? That insects evolved tongues for eating from flowers 70 million years before flowers evolved? And that birds appeared before birds evolved? The fossil record is a wonderful thing. And more recently, only a 40,000-year squeeze, Neanderthal had blood types A, B, and O, shocking evolutionists but expected to us here at Real Science Radio! Sit back and get ready to enjoy another instant classic, today's RSR "list show" on Evolution's Big Squeeze! Our other popular list shows include: - scientists doubting Darwin - evidence against whale evolution - problems with 'the river carved the canyon' - carbon 14 everywhere it shouldn't be - dinosaur still-soft biological tissue - solar system formation problems - evidence against the big bang - evidence for the global flood - genomes that just don't fit - and our list of not so old things! (See also rsr.org/sq2 and rsr.org/sq3!) * Evolution's Big Squeeze: Many discoveries squeeze the Darwinian theory's timeframe and of course without a workable timeframe there is no workable theory. Examples, with their alleged (and falsified) old-earth timeframes, include: - Complex skeletons existed 9 million years before they were thought to have evolved, before even the "Cambrian explosion".- Butterflies existed 10 million years before they were thought to have evolved. - Parrots existed "much earlier than had been thought", in fact, 25 million years before they were thought to have evolved. - Cephalopod fossils (squids, cuttlefish, etc.) appear 35 million years before they were able to propagate. - Turtle shells 40 million years before turtle shells began evolving - Trees began evolving 45 million years before they were thought to evolve - Spores appearing 50 million years before the plants that made them (not unlike footprints systematically appearing "millions of years before" the creatures that made them, as affirmed by Dr. Marcus Ross, associate professor of geology). - Sponges existed 60 million years before they were believed to have evolved. - Dinosaurs ate rice before it evolved Example - Insect proboscis (tongue) in moths and butterflies 70 million years before previously believed has them evolving before flowers. - Arthropod brains fully developed with central nervous system running to eyes and appendages just like modern arthropods 90 million years earlier than previously known (prior to 2021, now, allegedly 310mya) - 100 million years ago and already a bird - Fossil pollen pushes back plant evolution 100 million years. - Mammalian hair allegedly 100-million-years-old show that, "the morphology of hair cuticula may have remained unchanged throughout most of mammalian evolution", regarding the overlapping cells that lock the hair shaft into its follicle. - Piranha-like flesh-eating teeth (and bitten prey) found pushing back such fish 125 million years earlier than previously claimed   - Shocking organic molecules in "200 million-years-old leaves" from ginkgoes and conifers show unexpected stasis. - Plant genetic sophistication pushed back 200 million years. - Jellyfish fossils (Medusoid Problematica :) 200 million years earlier than expected; here from 500My ago. - Green seaweed 200 million years earlier than expected, pushed back now to a billion years ago!  - The acanthodii fish had color vision 300 million years ago, but then, and wait, Cheiracanthus fish allegedly 388 million years ago already had color vision. - Color vision (for which there is no Darwinian evolutionary small-step to be had, from monochromatic), existed "300 million years ago" in fish, and these allegedly "120-million-year-old" bird's rod and cone fossils stun researchers :) - 400-million-year-old Murrindalaspis placoderm fish "eye muscle attachment, the eyestalk attachment and openings for the optic nerve, and arteries and veins supplying the eyeball" The paper's author writes, "Of course, we would not expect the preservation of ancient structures made entirely of soft tissues (e.g. rods and cone cells in the retina...)." So, check this next item... :) - And... no vertebrates in the Cambrian? Well, from the journal Nature in 2014, a "Lower-Middle Cambrian... primitive fish displays unambiguous vertebrate features: a notochord, a pair of prominent camera-type eyes, paired nasal sacs, possible cranium and arcualia, W-shaped myomeres, and a post-anal tail" Primitive? - Fast-growing juvenile bone tissue, thought to appear in the Cretaceous, has been pushed back 100 million years: "This pushes the origin of fibrolamellar bone in Sauropterygia back from the Cretaceous to the early Middle Triassic..."- Trilobites "advanced" (not the predicted primitive) digestion "525 million" years ago - And there's this, a "530 million year old" fish, "50 million years before the current estimate of when fish evolved" - Mycobacterium tuberculosis 100,000 yr-old MRCA (most recent common ancestor) now 245 million- Fungus long claimed to originate 500M years ago, now found at allegedly 950 Mya (and still biological "the distant past... may have been much more 'modern' than we thought." :) - A rock contained pollen a billion years before plants evolved, according to a 2007 paper describing "remarkably preserved" fossil spores in the French Alps that had undergone high-grade metamorphism - 2.5 billion year old cyanobacteria fossils (made of organic material found in a stromatolite) appear about "200 million years before the [supposed] Great Oxidation Event". - 2.7 billion year old eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus) existed (allegedly) 1 billion years before expected - 3.5 billion year "cell division evidently identical to that of living filamentous prokaryotes." - And even older cyanobacteria! At 220 million years earlier than thought, per Nature's 3.7 billion year old dating of stromatolites! - The universe and life itself (in 2019 with the universe dated a billion, now, no, wait, two billion!, years younger than previously thought, that's not only squeezing biological but also astronomical evolution, with the overall story getting really tight) - Mantis shrimp, with its rudimentary color but advanced UV vision, is allegedly ancient. - Hadrosaur teeth, all 1400 of them, were "more complex than those of cows, horses, and other well-known modern grazers." Professor stunned by the find! (RSR predicts that, by 2030 just to put an end date on it, more fossils will be found from the geologic column that will be more "advanced" as compared to living organisms, just like this hadrosaur and like the allegedly 100M year old hagfish  fossil having more slime glands than living specimens.)  - Trace fossils "exquisitely preserved" of mobile organisms (motility) dated at 2.1 billion years ago, a full 1.5 billion earlier than previously believed - Various multicellular organisms allegedly 2.1 billion years old, show multicellularity 1.5 billion years sooner than long believed   - Pre-sauropod 26,000-pound dinosaur "shows us that even as far back as 200 million years ago, these animals had already become the largest vertebrates to ever walk the Earth." - The Evo-devo squeeze, i.e., evolutionary developmental biology, as with rsr.org/evo-devo-undermining-darwinism. - Extinct Siberian one-horned rhinos coexisted with mankind. - Whale "evolution" is being crushed in the industry-wide "big squeeze". First, geneticist claims whales evolved from hippos but paleontologists say hippos evolved tens of millions of years too late! And what's worse than that is that fossil finds continue to compress the time available for whale evolution. To not violate its own plot, the Darwinist story doesn't start animals evolving back into the sea until the cast includes land animals suitable to undertake the legendary journey. The recent excavation of whale fossils on an island of the Antarctic Peninsula further compresses the already absurdly fast 10 million years to allegedly evolve from the land back to the sea, down to as little as one million years. BioOne in 2016 reported a fossil that is "among the oldest occurrences of basilosaurids worldwide, indicating a rapid radiation and dispersal of this group since at least the early middle Eocene." By this assessment, various techniques produced various published dates. (See the evidence that falsifies the canonical whale evolution story at rsr.org/whales.) * Ancient Hierarchical Insect Society: "Thanks to some well-preserved remains, researchers now believe arthropod social structures have been around longer than anyone ever imagined. The encased specimens of ants and termites recently studied date back [allegedly] 100 million years." Also from the video about "the bubonic plague", the "disease is well known as a Middle Ages mass killer... Traces of very similar bacteria were found on [an allegedly] 20-million-year-old flea trapped in amber." And regarding "Caribbean lizards... Even though they are [allegedly] 20 million years old, the reptiles inside the golden stones were not found to differ from their contemporary counterparts in any significant way. Scientists attribute the rarity [Ha! A rarity or the rule? Check out rsr.org/stasis.] to stable ecological surroundings." * Squeezing and Rewriting Human History: Some squeezing simply makes aspects of the Darwinian story harder to maintain while other squeezing contradicts fundamental claims. So consider the following discoveries, most of which came from about a 12-month period beginning in 2017 which squeeze (and some even falsify) the Out-of-Africa model: - find two teeth and rewrite human history with allegedly 9.7 million-year-old teeth found in northern Europe (and they're like Lucy, but "three times older") - date blue eyes, when humans first sported them, to as recently as 6,000 years ago   - get mummy DNA and rewrite human history with a thousand years of ancient Egyptian mummy DNA contradicting Out-of-Africa and demonstrating Out-of-Babel - find a few footprints and rewrite human history with allegedly 5.7 million-year-old human footprints in Crete - re-date an old skull and rewrite human history with a very human skull dated at 325,000 years old and redated in the Journal of Physical Anthropology at about 260,000 years old and described in the UK's Independent, "A skull found in China [40 years ago] could re-write our entire understanding of human evolution." - date the oldest language in India, Dravidian, with 80 derivatives spoken by 214 million people, which appeared on the subcontinent only about 4,500 years ago, which means that there is no evidence for human language for nearly 99% of the time that humans were living in Asia. (Ha! See rsr.org/origin-of-language for the correct explanation.) - sequence a baby's genome and rewrite human history with a 6-week old girl buried in Alaska allegedly 11,500 years ago challenging the established history of the New World. (The family buried this baby girl just beneath their home like the practice in ancient Mesopotamia, the Hebrews who sojourned in Egypt, and in Çatalhöyük in southern Turkey, one of the world's most ancient settlements.) - or was that 130,000? years ago as the journal Nature rewrites human history with a wild date for New World site - and find a jawbone and rewrite human history with a modern looking yet allegedly 180,000-year-old jawbone from Israel which "may rewrite the early migration story of our species" by about 100,000 years, per the journal Science - re-date a primate and lose yet another "missing link" between "Lucy" and humans, as Homo naledi sheds a couple million years off its age and drops from supposedly two million years old to (still allegedly) about 250,000 years old, far too "young" to be the allegedly missing link - re-analysis of the "best candidate" for the most recent ancestor to human beings, Australopithecus sediba, turns out to be a juvenile Lucy-like ape, as Science magazine reports work presented at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists 2017 annual meeting - find skulls in Morocco and "rewrite human history" admits the journal Nature, falsifying also the "East Africa" part of the canonical story - and from the You Can't Make This Stuff Up file, NPR reports in April 2019, Ancient Bones And Teeth Found In A Philippine Cave May Rewrite Human History. :) - Meanwhile, whereas every new discovery requires the materialists to rewrite human history, no one has had to rewrite Genesis, not even once. Yet, "We're not claiming that the Bible is a science textbook. Not at all. For the textbooks have to be rewritten all the time!"  - And even this from Science: "humans mastered the art of training and controlling dogs thousands of years earlier than previously thought."- RSR's Enyart commented on the Smithsonian's 2019 article on ancient DNA possibly deconstructing old myths...  This Smithsonian article about an ancient DNA paper in Science Advances, or actually, about the misuse of such papers, was itself a misuse. The published research, Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines, confirmed Amos 9:7 by documenting the European origin of the biblical Philistines who came from the island of Caphtor/Crete. The mainstream media completely obscured this astounding aspect of the study but the Smithsonian actually stood the paper on its head. [See also rsr.org/archaeology.]* Also Squeezing Darwin's Theory: - Evolution happens so slowly that we can't see it, yet - it happens so fast that millions of mutations get fixed in a blink of geologic time AND: - Observing a million species annually should show us a million years of evolution, but it doesn't, yet - evolution happens so fast that the billions of "intermediary" fossils are missing AND: - Waiting for helpful random mutations to show up explains the slowness of evolution, yet - adaption to changing environments is often immediate, as with Darwin's finches Finches Adapt in 17 Years, Not 2.3 Million: Charles Darwin's finches are claimed to have taken 2,300,000 years to diversify from an initial species blown onto the Galapagos Islands. Yet individuals from a single finch species on a U.S. Bird Reservation in the Pacific were introduced to a group of small islands 300 miles away and in at most 17 years, like Darwin's finches, they had diversified their beaks, related muscles, and behavior to fill various ecological niches. So Darwin's finches could diversify in just 17 years, and after 2.3 million more years, what had they evolved into? Finches! Hear this also at rsr.org/lee-spetner and see Jean Lightner's review of the Grants' 40 Years. AND: - Fossils of modern organisms are found "earlier" and "earlier" in the geologic column, and - the "oldest" organisms are increasingly found to have anatomical, proteinaceous, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic sophistication and similarity to "modern" organisms AND: - Small populations are in danger of extinction (yet they're needed to fix mutations), whereas - large populations make it impossible for a mutation to become standard AND: - Mutations that express changes too late in an organism's development can't effect its fundamental body plan, and - mutations expressed too early in an organism's development are fatal (hence among the Enyart sayings, "Like evolving a vital organ, most major hurdles for evolutionary theory are extinction-level events.") AND: - To evolve flight, you'd get bad legs - long before you'd get good wings AND: - Most major evolutionary hurdles appear to be extinction-level events- yet somehow even *vital* organs evolve (for many species, that includes reproductive organs, skin, brain, heart, circulatory system, kidney, liver, pancreas, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, lungs -- which are only a part of the complex respiration system) AND: - Natural selection of randomly taller, swifter, etc., fish, mammals, etc. explains evolution yet - development of microscopic molecular machines, feedback mechanisms, etc., which power biology would be oblivous to what's happening in Darwin's macro environment of the entire organism AND: - Neo-Darwinism suggests genetic mutation as the engine of evolution yet - the there is not even a hypothesis for modifying the vast non-genetic information in every living cell including the sugar code, electrical code, the spatial (geometric) code, and the epigenetic code AND: - Constant appeals to "convergent" evolution (repeatedly arising vision, echolocation, warm-bloodedness, etc.) - undermine most Darwinian anatomical classification especially those based on trivialities like odd or even-toed ungulates, etc. AND: - Claims that given a single species arising by abiogenesis, then - Darwinism can explain the diversification of life, ignores the science of ecology and the (often redundant) biological services that species rely upon AND: - humans' vastly superior intelligence indicates, as bragged about for decades by Darwinists, that ape hominids should have the greatest animal intelligence, except that - many so-called "primitive" creatures and those far distant on Darwin's tee of life, exhibit extraordinary rsr.org/animal-intelligence even to processing stimuli that some groups of apes cannot AND: - Claims that the tree of life emerges from a single (or a few) common ancestors - conflict with the discoveries of multiple genetic codes and of thousands of orphan genes that have no similarity (homology) to any other known genes AND (as in the New Scientist cover story, "Darwin Was Wrong about the tree of life", etc.): - DNA sequences have contradicted anatomy-based ancestry claims - Fossil-based ancestry claims have been contradicted by RNA claims - DNA-based ancestry claims have been contradicted by anatomy claims - Protein-based ancestry claims have been contradicted by fossil claims. - And the reverse problem compared to a squeeze. Like finding the largest mall in America built to house just a kid's lemonade stand, see rsr.org/200 for the astounding lack of genetic diversity in humans, plants, and animals, so much so that it could all be accounted for in just about 200 generations! - The multiplied things that evolved multiple times - Etc. * List of Ways Darwinists Invent their Tree of Life, aka Pop Goes the Weasle – Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes: Evolutionists change their selection of what evidence they use to show 'lineage', from DNA to fossils to genes to body plans to teeth to many specific anatomical features to proteins to behavior to developmental similarities to habitat to RNA, etc. and to a combination of such. Darwinism is an entire endeavor based on selection bias, a kind of logical fallacy. By anti-science they arbitrarily select evidence that best matches whichever evolutionary story is currently preferred." -Bob E. The methodology used to create the family tree edifice to show evolutionary relationships classifies the descent of organisms based on such attributes as odd-toed and even-toed ungulates. Really? If something as wildly sophisticated as vision allegedly evolved multiple times (a dozen or more), then for cryin' out loud, why couldn't something as relatively simple as odd or even toes repeatedly evolve? How about dinosaur's evolving eggs with hard shells? Turns out that "hard-shelled eggs evolved at least three times independently in dinosaurs" (Nature, 2020). However, whether a genus has an odd or even number of toes, and similar distinctions, form the basis for the 150-year-old Darwinist methodology. Yet its leading proponents still haven't acknowledged that their tree building is arbitrary and invalid. Darwin's tree recently fell anyway, and regardless, it has been known to be even theoretically invalid all these many decades. Consider also bipedalism? In their false paradigm, couldn't that evolve twice? How about vertebrate and non-vertebrates, for that matter, evolving multiple times? Etc., etc., etc. Darwinists determine evolutionary family-tree taxonomic relationships based on numbers of toes, when desired, or on hips (distinguishing, for example, dinosaur orders, until they didn't) or limb bones, or feathers, or genes, or fossil sequence, or neck bone, or..., or..., or... Etc. So the platypus, for example, can be described as evolving from pretty much whatever story would be in vogue at the moment...   * "Ancient" Protein as Advanced as Modern Protein: A book review in the journal Science states, "the major conclusion is reached that 'analyses made of the oldest fossils thus far studied do not suggest that their [allegedly 145-million year-old] proteins were chemically any simpler than those now being produced.'" 1972, Biochemistry of Animal Fossils, p. 125 * "Ancient" Lampreys Just Modern Lampreys with Decomposed Brain and Mouth Parts: Ha! Researches spent half-a-year documenting how fish decay. RSR is so glad they did! One of the lessons learned? "[C]ertain parts of the brain and the mouth that distinguish the animals from earlier relatives begin a rapid decay within 24 hours..." :) * 140-million Year Old Spider Web: The BBC and National Geographic report on a 140-million year old spider web in amber which, as young-earth creationists expect, shows threads that resemble silk spun by modern spiders. Evolutionary scientists on the otherhand express surprise "that spider webs have stayed the same for 140 million years." And see the BBC. * Highly-Credentialed Though Non-Paleontologist on Flowers: Dr. Harry Levin who spent the last 15 years of a brilliant career researching paleontology presents much evidence that flowering plants had to originate not 150 million years ago but more than 300 million years ago. (To convert that to an actual historical timeframe, the evidence indicates flowers must have existed prior to the time that the strata, which is popularly dated to 300 mya, actually formed.) * Rampant Convergence: Ubiquitous appeals to "convergent" evolution (vision, echolocation, warm-bloodedness, icthyosaur/dolphin anatomy, etc.), all allegedly evolving multiple times, undermines anatomical classification based on trivialities like odd or even-toed ungulates, etc. * Astronomy's Big Evolution Squeeze: - Universe a billion, wait, two billion, years younger than thought   (so now it has to evolve even more impossibly rapidly) - Sun's evolution squeezes biological evolution - Galaxies evolving too quickly - Dust evolving too quickly - Black holes evolving too quickly - Clusters of galaxies evolving too quickly. * The Sun's Evolution Squeezes Life's Evolution: The earlier evolutionists claim that life began on Earth, the more trouble they have with astrophysicists. Why? They claim that a few billion years ago the Sun would have been far more unstable and cooler. The journal Nature reports that the Faint young Sun paradox remains for the "Sun was fainter when the Earth was young, but the climate was generally at least as warm as today". Further, our star would shoot out radioactive waves many of which being violent enough to blow out Earth's atmosphere into space, leaving Earth dead and dry like Mars without an atmosphere. And ignoring the fact that powerful computer simulators cannot validate the nebula theory of star formation, if the Sun had formed from a condensing gas cloud, a billion years later it still would have been emitting far less energy, even 30% less, than it does today. Forget about the claimed one-degree increase in the planet's temperature from man-made global warming, back when Darwinists imagine life arose, by this just-so story of life spontaneously generating in a warm pond somewhere (which itself is impossible), the Earth would have been an ice ball, with an average temperature of four degrees Fahrenheit below freezing! See also CMI's video download The Young Sun. * Zircons Freeze in Molten Eon Squeezing Earth's Evolution? Zircons "dated" 4 to 4.4 billion years old would have had to freeze (form) when the Earth allegedly was in its Hadean (Hades) Eon and still molten. Geophysicist Frank Stacey (Cambridge fellow, etc.) has suggested they may have formed above ocean trenches where it would be coolest. One problem is that even further squeezes the theory of plate tectonics requiring it to operate two billion years before otherwise claimed. A second problem (for these zircons and the plate tectonics theory itself) is that ancient trenches (now filled with sediments; others raised up above sea level; etc.) have never been found. A third problem is that these zircons contain low isotope ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12 which evolutionists may try to explain as evidence for life existing even a half-billion years before they otherwise claim. For more about this (and to understand how these zircons actually did form) just click and then search (ctrl-f) for: zircon character. * Evolution Squeezes Life to Evolve with Super Radioactivity: Radioactivity today breaks chromosomes and produces neutral, harmful, and fatal birth defects. Dr. Walt Brown reports that, "A 160-pound person experiences 2,500 carbon-14 disintegrations each second", with about 10 disintergrations per second in our DNA. Worse for evolutionists is that, "Potassium-40 is the most abundant radioactive substance in... every living thing." Yet the percentage of Potassium that was radioactive in the past would have been far in excess of its percent today. (All this is somewhat akin to screws in complex machines changing into nails.) So life would have had to arise from inanimate matter (an impossibility of course) when it would have been far more radioactive than today. * Evolution of Uranium Squeezed by Contrasting Constraints: Uranium's two most abundant isotopes have a highly predictable ratio with 235U/238U equaling 0.007257 with a standard deviation of only 0.000017. Big bang advocates claim that these isotopes formed in distant stellar cataclysms. Yet that these isotopes somehow collected in innumerable small ore bodies in a fixed ratio is absurd. The impossibility of the "big bang" explanation of the uniformity of the uranium ratio (rsr.org/bb#ratio) simultaneously contrasts in the most shocking way with its opposite impossibility of the missing uniform distribution of radioactivity (see rsr.org/bb#distribution) with 90% of Earth's radioactivity in the Earth's crust, actually, the continental crust, and even at that, preferentially near granite! A stellar-cataclysmic explanation within the big bang paradigm for the origin of uranium is severely squeezed into being falsified by these contrasting constraints. * Remarkable Sponges? Yes, But For What Reason? Study co-author Dr. Kenneth S. Kosik, the Harriman Professor of Neuroscience at UC Santa Barbara said, "Remarkably, the sponge genome now reveals that, along the way toward the emergence of animals, genes for an entire network of many specialized cells evolved and laid the basis for the core gene logic of organisms that no longer functioned as single cells." And then there's this: these simplest of creatures have manufacturing capabilities that far exceed our own, as Degnan says, "Sponges produce an amazing array of chemicals of direct interest to the pharmaceutical industry. They also biofabricate silica fibers directly from seawater in an environmentally benign manner, which is of great interest in communications [i.e., fiber optics]. With the genome in hand, we can decipher the methods used by these simple animals to produce materials that far exceed our current engineering and chemistry capabilities." Kangaroo Flashback: From our RSR Darwin's Other Shoe program: The director of Australia's Kangaroo Genomics Centre, Jenny Graves, that "There [are] great chunks of the human genome… sitting right there in the kangaroo genome." And the 20,000 genes in the kangaroo (roughly the same number as in humans) are "largely the same" as in people, and Graves adds, "a lot of them are in the same order!" CMI's Creation editors add that "unlike chimps, kangaroos are not supposed to be our 'close relatives.'" And "Organisms as diverse as leeches and lawyers are 'built' using the same developmental genes." So Darwinists were wrong to use that kind of genetic similarity as evidence of a developmental pathway from apes to humans. Hibernating Turtles: Question to the evolutionist: What happened to the first turtles that fell asleep hibernating underwater? SHOW UPDATE Of Mice and Men: Whereas evolutionists used a very superficial claim of chimpanzee and human genetic similarity as evidence of a close relationship, mice and men are pretty close also. From the Human Genome Project, How closely related are mice and humans?, "Mice and humans (indeed, most or all mammals including dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, and apes) have roughly the same number of nucleotides in their genomes -- about 3 billion base pairs. This comparable DNA content implies that all mammals [RSR: like roundworms :)] contain more or less the same number of genes, and indeed our work and the work of many others have provided evidence to confirm that notion. I know of only a few cases in which no mouse counterpart can be found for a particular human gene, and for the most part we see essentially a one-to-one correspondence between genes in the two species." * Related RSR Reports: See our reports on the fascinating DNA sequencing results from roundworms and the chimpanzee's Y chromosome! * Genetic Bottleneck, etc: Here's an excerpt from rsr.org/why-was-canaan-cursed... A prediction about the worldwide distribution of human genetic sequencing (see below) is an outgrowth of the Bible study at that same link (aka rsr.org/canaan), in that scientists will discover a genetic pattern resulting from not three but four sons of Noah's wife. Relevant information comes also from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which is not part of any of our 46 chromosomes but resides outside of the nucleus. Consider first some genetic information about Jews and Arabs, Jewish priests, Eve, and Noah. Jews and Arabs Biblical Ancestry: Dr. Jonathan Sarfati quotes the director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Harry Ostrer, who in 2000 said: Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham … And all have preserved their Middle Eastern genetic roots over 4,000 years. This familiar pattern, of the latest science corroborating biblical history, continues in Dr. Sarfati's article, Genesis correctly predicts Y-Chromosome pattern: Jews and Arabs shown to be descendants of one man. Jewish Priests Share Genetic Marker: The journal Nature in its scientific correspondence published, Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests, by scie

In this episode, we discuss the mitochondria. You know mitochondria as the "powerhouse" of the cell, but this biological process is biophysics meeting biochemistry. We discuss glycolysis, the TCA cycle (or Citric Acid cycle or Krebs cycle), and Oxidative Phosphorylation. This discussion goes deep inside the atomic molecular level with electrons and protons. Hang in there with the discussion and topic of Autism and understanding of the generational link to a loss of electrons. Jack Kruse https://www.patreon.com/DrJackKruse/postsGlycolysis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470170/#:~:text=Glycolysis%20is%20a%20central%20metabolic,use%20in%20other%20metabolic%20pathways.Citric Acid cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycleOxidative Phosphorylation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_phosphorylation0:00 Intro; Light, water, magnetism; The "powerhouse" and understanding of healthy living organisms and different cell types; Photosynthesis and Cell Respiration 4:11 Prokaryotes, Eukaryotes, and Cytochrome C Oxidase (CCO)6:53 Mitochondria and Cellular Respiration 1) Glycolysis, 2) Citric Acid cycle, and 3) Oxidative Phosphorylation (OXPHOS) 8:25 Glycolysis10:03 Citric Acid cycle12:02 OXPHOS13:51 Cytochrome I15:07 Cytochrome II16:08 Cytochrome III17:10 Cytochrome IV and creating water19:56 Not all water is equal/same; Aging; Light and Melanin and Rates of Autism29:20 Cytochrome V and ATPase; Chromophores 33:56 Evolution and losing electrons; Autism and modern health complications37:50 Environmental signals due DNA sequencing; Autism research and Genetic studies40:23 Reviews/Ratings and contact infoX: https://twitter.com/rps47586Hopp: https://www.hopp.bio/fromthespectrumemail: info.fromthespectrum@gmail.com

This episode: Trends of declining lichen populations and biocrust cover overall match trends of increasing temperatures in Colorado dryland! Download Episode (6.4 MB, 9.3 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Cherry chlorotic rusty spot associated partitivirus Takeaways: Global climate change is affecting almost every natural system on the planet, in predictable and also sometimes unexpected, complex ways. Microbes perform key roles in many different ecosystems, providing and recycling important nutrients and even macroscopic structure. One example of this is biocrusts in dryland environments, such as areas in the western US with low annual rainfall. Microbes other organisms form a stable surface binding soil and sand particles together, helping to retain moisture and prevent erosion and transformation of land into desert. In this study of a Colorado park over more than 20 years, important species of symbiotic fungi and photosynthetic microbes in the form of lichens have declined significantly. The land is mostly untroubled by grazing or human activity, but changes in climate and moisture and the presence of invasive plants could affect lichens. However, the temperature increase over the decades showed the best correlation with the lichen decline. The loss of these species could lead to nutrient shortages in the long term for these communities. Journal Paper: Finger-Higgens R, Duniway MC, Fick S, Geiger EL, Hoover DL, Pfennigwerth AA, Van Scoyoc MW, Belnap J. 2022. Decline in biological soil crust N-fixing lichens linked to increasing summertime temperatures. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 119:e2120975119. Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: A virus partners with a parasitoid wasp to help exploit fruit fly victims! Download Episode (7.7 MB, 11.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Actinomadura livida Takeaways Parasitoid wasps have an interesting lifestyle: they inject their eggs into the larvae of other insects, and their young hatch and grow up by consuming the host from the inside. Some of these wasps also inject a virus along with the egg, which supports the wasp offspring by suppressing the host immune system. Most of these parasitoid helper viruses are integrated into the host wasp genome and are translated and produced as needed, but in this study, an independently replicating entomopoxvirus serves as an example of a virus-wasp mutualism. The study explores how the virus can infect the wasp prey, and how it gets passed on to wasp offspring. Journal Paper: Coffman KA, Hankinson QM, Burke GR. 2022. A viral mutualist employs posthatch transmission for vertical and horizontal spread among parasitoid wasps. Proc Natl Acad Sci 119:e2120048119.   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Many organisms produce the smell of earth, geosmin, and many others can sense it–but why? Download Episode (6.0 MB, 8.7 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Acidianus spindle-shaped virus 1   News item   Takeaways The smell of soil or earth is one of the most recognizable smells, and comes largely from a chemical called geosmin, produced by many different kinds of bacteria. Many animal species are sensitive to geosmin, some attracted by it and others repelled. But it is still not entirely understood what is the evolutionary benefit to the microbes that produce it, or the reason why different animals are sensitive to it in different ways. In this study, different geosmin-producing bacteria were paired with tiny bacteria-eating roundworms, nematodes, to see how the chemical affected their interactions. Production of geosmin affected the worms' movement, apparently inducing them to avoid colonies of the producing microbes in some cases, though the worms still sometimes fed on the bacteria. Adding geosmin to colonies of different bacteria did not affect the worms' behavior though, so other factors seem to be involved. Journal Paper: Zaroubi L, Ozugergin I, Mastronardi K, Imfeld A, Law C, Gélinas Y, Piekny A, Findlay BL. 2022. The Ubiquitous Soil Terpene Geosmin Acts as a Warning Chemical. Appl Environ Microbiol 88:e00093-22. Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Slime mold amoebas Fonticula alba have interesting and unique foraging and reproductive behaviors! Download Episode (7.3 MB, 10.6 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Cajanus cajan Panzee virus News item   Takeaways How did life develop from single-celled organisms acting independently into the complex, multicellular organisms we see and are today? Although it is difficult to look back through time to study how ancient organisms may have developed along this path, it is possible to investigate modern organisms that occupy a zone in between single-celled and multicellular, to see if we can get some hints to our own development, and also learn about some interesting microbes along the way! This study into the social amoeba, or slime mold, Fonticula alba, finds that the individual amoebal cells in a population join together into collectives and break apart into individuals at different stages of their complex life cycle, depending on the status of the bacteria around them that they forage as prey. The investigators tease out the various pathways taken by these amoebas.   Journal Paper: Toret C, Picco A, Boiero-Sanders M, Michelot A, Kaksonen M. 2022. The cellular slime mold Fonticula alba forms a dynamic, multicellular collective while feeding on bacteria. Curr Biol 32:1961-1973.e4. Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: A marine protist predator traps prey microbes in an attractive bubble of mucus, eats what it wants, and lets the rest sink, possibly sequestering significant amounts of carbon! Download Episode (7.8 MB, 11.4 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Bat associated cyclovirus 1 News item Takeaways The oceans have a lot of unique, unexplored life in them. This is true on a macro level but even more on a microscopic level, with many different kinds of microbes of various groups with fascinating life strategies. And despite being microscopic, with enough of them around, they can affect the whole planet's climate in significant ways. In this study, one protist species gets most of its nutrients from photosynthesis, but what it can't get from the sun, it takes from prey microbes by force. To catch its prey, it creates an intricate bubble of mucus called a mucosphere, and waits for other microbes to swim into it, thinking it is food, and get stuck. Then the predator chooses the prey cell it wants and abandons the rest, letting them sink to the ocean floor and locking away the carbon they contain in the process.   Journal Paper: Larsson ME, Bramucci AR, Collins S, Hallegraeff G, Kahlke T, Raina J-B, Seymour JR, Doblin MA. 2022. Mucospheres produced by a mixotrophic protist impact ocean carbon cycling. Nat Commun 13:1301. Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

In this podcast episode, join Azaii and Phil as they navigate the differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes that you should know for the MCAT. What are operons, how are genes transferred, and what makes prokaryotes "shine?" About Jack Westin - The team at Jack Westin is dedicated to a single goal: giving students the highest quality learning resources. Jack Westin understands that students can't crush the MCAT without the perfect blend of critical thinking and fundamental science knowledge. To this end, Jack Westin is dedicated to providing students with cutting edge comprehensive tools, courses, and practice materials. The Jack Westin MCAT science and CARS courses, taught by the world's best and most engaging MCAT instructors, are designed to do more than just teach students the MCAT—it supercharges studying and encourages lifelong learning. Want to learn more? Shoot us a text at 415-855-4435 or email us at podcast@jackwestin.com!

This episode: Certain phages in the gut are linked with increases in performance on some cognitive tests! Download Episode (7.5 MB, 10.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces bikiniensis News item Takeaways Our gut microbiota includes a large number of viruses, mostly bacteriophages. These fall into two groups, the lytic kind that infects and reproduces itself immediately in a host, and the lysogenic kind that can integrate its genome into the host bacterial genome and remain dormant for long periods. In this study, a higher proportion of lysogenic phages was correlated with increased performance on cognitive tests in multiple species. In humans, men showed a small increase in some tests and women in others. In mice and fruit flies, transplant or ingestion of phages was linked to increased memory performance.   Journal Paper: Mayneris-Perxachs J, Castells-Nobau A, Arnoriaga-Rodríguez M, Garre-Olmo J, Puig J, Ramos R, Martínez-Hernández F, Burokas A, Coll C, Moreno-Navarrete JM, Zapata-Tona C, Pedraza S, Pérez-Brocal V, Ramió-Torrentà L, Ricart W, Moya A, Martínez-García M, Maldonado R, Fernández-Real J-M. 2022. Caudovirales bacteriophages are associated with improved executive function and memory in flies, mice, and humans. Cell Host Microbe 30:340-356.e8. Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Gene transfers between viruses and eukaryotes have happened many times throughout evolutionary history! Download Episode (7.5 MB, 10.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Mycoplasma subdolum News item Takeaways As we've all seen recently, viruses can cause a lot of trouble. Their biology requires them to be parasites inside the cells of their hosts, and they can cause devastating disease, so it's hard to think of them as having played important roles in the development of life on Earth, including our own evolution. However, this study found thousands of apparent historical transfers of genes from virus to host or from host to virus in the cells of all kinds of different eukaryotes. Some of these genes play important roles in the cell, helping to make them what they are.   Journal Paper: Irwin NAT, Pittis AA, Richards TA, Keeling PJ. 2022. Systematic evaluation of horizontal gene transfer between eukaryotes and viruses. Nat Microbiol 7:327–336.   Other interesting stories: Building a device that translates signals from one microbe to communicate with another Cloaking antitumor bacteria to fight cancer without immune system interference   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

المصادر Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death By Nick Lane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdxH9cnJbRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrEr_AnSsGs https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a39454249/how-was-the-moon-formed/ https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Microbiology/Microbiology_%28Boundless%29/04%3A_Cell_Structure_of_Bacteria_Archaea_and_Eukaryotes/4.04%3A_Cell_Walls_of_Prokaryotes/4.4A%3A_The_Cell_Wall_of_Bacteria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5g55ogdvW8

This episode: Simple microscopic animals can survive extreme radiation by ejecting damaged cells that might otherwise become cancer! Download Episode (7.3 MB, 9.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Helleborus net necrosis virus News item Takeaways Any multicellular organism with different types of cells needs some sort of cell regulation, to keep each cell type doing what it's supposed to do for the good of the organism as a whole. We know what happens when this regulation fails and one type of cells starts multiplying out of control: cancer. However, cancer has never yet been observed in certain organisms, including the simple microscopic animal Trichoplax adhaerens. In this study, these animals are exposed to large amounts of radiation and then observed over years to see if they can develop cancer or have interesting mechanisms of resisting it.   Journal Paper: Fortunato A, Fleming A, Aktipis A, Maley CC. 2021. Upregulation of DNA repair genes and cell extrusion underpin the remarkable radiation resistance of Trichoplax adhaerens. PLOS Biol 19:e3001471.   Other interesting stories: Genes transferred from bacteria to algae helped land plants evolve   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

News Items: Starship Launch, False Belief Systems, Ashwagandha and other Herbal Drugs, The Evolution of Eukaryotes, Blue Holes; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: P-Values vs Effect Sizes; Science or Fiction

News Items: Starship Launch, False Belief Systems, Ashwagandha and other Herbal Drugs, The Evolution of Eukaryotes, Blue Holes; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: P-Values vs Effect Sizes; Science or Fiction

This episode: How family members share gut microbes across multiple generations! Download Episode (7.3 MB, 10.7 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Dyozetapapillomavirus 1 Takeaways Our gut's microbial communities can greatly influence our health, for good or bad. The makeup of these communities can be influenced by many factors, including genetics, health status, diet, and other aspects of the environment we live in. We've learned a lot about this topic recently, but there's a lot more we still don't understand. In this study, gut microbe samples from individuals spanning multiple generations in the same families were compared, to see how much influence family relationships and cohabitation could have on the gut communities. Both genetic relationship and living together had influences on which gut microbes different people shared.   Journal Paper: Valles-Colomer M, Bacigalupe R, Vieira-Silva S, Suzuki S, Darzi Y, Tito RY, Yamada T, Segata N, Raes J, Falony G. 2022. Variation and transmission of the human gut microbiota across multiple familial generations. 1. Nat Microbiol 7:87–96.   Other interesting stories: Simple modification to interesting bacteria make them excrete nitrogen fertilizer Making carbon dioxide into useful chemicals with bacteria   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Bacteriophages can hitch a ride on bacteria they don't infect to travel through soil on fungal filaments, potentially helping their carriers by infecting and killing their competitors! Download Episode (7.1 MB, 10.3 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Epinotia aporema granulovirus News item Takeaways For tiny bacteria, partially dry soil can be like a vast system of caverns, with particles of soil separated by air-filled spaces much bigger than individual bacteria. Not all bacteria can swim through liquid, and those that can't simply try to thrive as best they can wherever they may be. But for those that can swim, fungi and other filamentous organisms can form bridges between soil particles that motile bacteria can swim across, reaching new places. In this study, phages were found to hitch a ride on bacteria they don't normally infect, crossing fungus-like filaments to new places and infecting the bacteria they find there. The bacteria carrying them can also benefit from this interaction, since the phages help the carrier bacteria compete and establish a colony in the new location.   Journal Paper: You X, Kallies R, Kühn I, Schmidt M, Harms H, Chatzinotas A, Wick LY. 2022. Phage co-transport with hyphal-riding bacteria fuels bacterial invasion in a water-unsaturated microbial model system. 5. ISME J 16:1275–1283.   Other interesting stories: Fungus species discovered in spacecraft assembly facility Oral microbes uniquely influence immune system interaction with mouth bones   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Beetles inoculate bamboo with a fungus that consumes the bamboo sugars to feed the beetle larvae! Download Episode (7.7 MB, 11.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Saccharomyces cerevisiae virus L-BC (La) News item Video: Lizard beetle laying its egg Takeaways The structural polymers that make up plants, such as cellulose, can be difficult for many organisms to digest. Some kinds of bacteria and fungi can do it, and some animals (cows, pandas, termites) partner with these microbes to be able to eat otherwise indigestible plant material. This includes insects such as leaf-cutter ants that farm external gardens of microbes, providing them plant material and then eating the resulting microbial growth. In this study, the lizard beetle lays its eggs in bamboo and inoculates the walls of the bamboo with a fungus that provides food to the larvae. Chemical analyses suggest that the fungus only consumes the simple sugars in the bamboo rather than breaking down the tougher polymers, which raises questions about the evolution of this interaction.   Journal Paper: Toki W, Aoki D. 2021. Nutritional resources of the yeast symbiont cultivated by the lizard beetle Doubledaya bucculenta in bamboos. Sci Rep 11:19208.   Other interesting stories: Using bacteria to detect and target colon cancer for imaging (paper) Filters made from kombucha cultures could work better than synthetic types   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Why Are Bacteria So Simple?, published by aysja on February 6, 2023 on LessWrong. As far as we can tell, bacteria were the first lifeforms on Earth. Which means they've had a full four billion years to make something of themselves. And yet, despite their long evolutionary history, they mostly still look like this: Bacteria belong to one major class of cells—prokaryotes. The other major class of cells, eukaryotes, arrived about one billion years after bacteria. But despite their late start, they are vastly more complex. Prokaryotes mostly only contain DNA, and DNA translation machinery. Eukaryotes, on the other hand, contain a huge variety of internal organelles that run all kinds of specialized processes—lysosomes digest, vesicles transport, cytoskeletons offer structural support, etc. Not only that, but all multicellular life is eukaryotic. Every complex organism evolution has produced—eukaryotic. Trees, humans, worms, giant squid, dogs, insects—eukaryotic. Somehow, eukaryotes managed to blossom into all of these complex forms, while bacteria steadfastly remained single-celled, simple, and small. Why? The short answer is that prokaryotes have vastly less DNA than eukaryotes—four to five orders of magnitude less, on average—and hence can't do nearly as much stuff. The long answer is the rest of this post, which investigates two related questions: first, why are eukaryotic genomes so long? And second, how exactly does more DNA allow for more complexity? Why Are Eukaryotic Genomes So Long? Scalable Energy Production Using DNA—replicating, transcribing, and translating it into proteins—isn't free. Cells need energy (such as ATP) to power these reactions and, all else equal, longer genomes will require more of it. Both prokaryotes and eukaryotes pay similar energetic costs to maintain genes. The difference is that eukaryotes have way more energy and hence can afford to have longer genomes. But why this disparity? Prokaryotes generate ATP along their cell membrane. Which means that as they increase in size, their surface area—and hence their energy production—will scale sublinearly with their volume. So a prokaryote that doubles in size, for example, will only end up producing half as much ATP per unit volume. Because prokaryotes become less metabolically efficient as they get bigger, most are quite small—six orders of magnitude smaller than eukaryotes, on average. There are some exceptions. For instance, individual bacteria in the species Thiomargarita can reach up to one centimeter in size, visible to the naked eye! But its cell structure suggests the exception proves the rule—80% of its volume is a vacuole, essentially empty space. So in effect, evolution expanded its surface area without concomitantly expanding its functional volume—a neat trick! But how do eukaryotes avoid this surface area constraint? Well, eukaryotes generate energy using mitochondria, which are inside the cells. As a result, their number of mitochondria—and hence their energy production—scales with their volume. This allows them to afford both larger cell sizes than prokaryotes, and also longer genomes. Tolerance for Junk But bioenergetic constraints aren't the whole story. Even leaving aside the direct energy costs, prokaryotes face way more selection pressure toward having short genomes. Empirically, bacteria are very quick to rid themselves of genes once they're no longer useful. For example, if you insert DNA into a bacteria that affords antibiotic resistance, it will keep those genes as long as antibiotics are around. But once you remove the antibiotics, it will jettison that DNA within a few hours. Eukaryotic DNA, on the other hand, is much more weakly selected against. While bacteria are sensitive to additions of DNA fewer than ten base pairs in length, eukaryotes will keep additions of ove...

This episode: Predatory bacteria could protect lobster farms from disease-causing bacteria! Download Episode (4.8 MB, 7 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Gordonia rubripertincta     Takeaways Antibiotics have done wonders for controlling bacterial pathogens. Many people have lived that would otherwise have died, and some industries have produced much more than they would have, particularly those involved in animal farming. However, more and more targeted pathogens are developing resistance to the antibiotics we have, and new ones are harder to discover, so alternative approaches are needed. Here, predatory bacteria take the place of antibiotics in a study on farmed spiny lobsters. These predators swim after and attach to prey bacteria, hollowing out their contents to use as nutrients to make more predators. They do not hurt the lobsters, but the study finds they do reduce the number of pathogenic prey organisms injected into the lobsters at the same time.   Journal Paper: Ooi MC, Goulden EF, Smith GG, Bridle ARY 2021. 2021. Predatory bacteria in the haemolymph of the cultured spiny lobster Panulirus ornatus. Microbiology 167:001113. Other interesting stories: 3D-printing bacterial biofilms Review of latest in oncolytic (cancer-killing) viruses   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

What if you could make pure protein by feeding microbes CO2 and hydrogen? This technology is independent of soil and sun and just badass. Sci-Fi is real, I tell you. Sci-Fi is real. In this season we have looked at precision fermentation and biomass fermentation. If that doesn't mean much to you, don't worry. You will still be able to understand this episode. Both of these technologies need some kind of input. For example yeast in precision, fermentation needs sugars and other nutrients mixed into the broth in the bioreactor. And in solid biomass fermentation, you for example would need some kind of grain for the mycelium, the root structure of a mushroom, to grow in. But what if you wouldn't need any agricultural input? What if you could use a microbe that is so badass that it makes proteins from CO2 and hydrogen? Gregor came across gas fermentation on a quest to find the most sustainable food humanity can produce. You will hear from Gregor Tegl, co-Founder and CEO of Arkeon today, a company based in Austria. LINKS Check out our supporter of this season FoodLabs and their Climate Program: https://www.foodlabs.com/ More info and links to resources on https://redtogreen.solutions/ For sponsorships, collaborations, volunteering, or feedback write Marina at change@redtogreen.solutions Please leave a review on iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/red-to-green-food-sustainability/id1511303510 Connect with Marina Schmidt https://www.linkedin.com/in/schmidt-marina/ Show notes DNA sequence comparisons consistently categorize all living organisms into 3 primary domains: Bacteria that are classified as prokaryotes Archaea (Arkea) Bacteria and Archaea are called prokaryotes, which means they are unicellular organisms. And they were likely the first ones on planet earth. Almost all prokaryotes have a cell wall, a protective structure that allows them to survive in extreme conditions. That isn't always the case for the third type. Eukarya (also called Eukaryotes) includes us and all other animals, plants, and fungi. All organisms whose cells have a nucleus to enclose their DNA apart from the rest of the cell. The bottom line is that different technologies and processes tap into different types of organisms. Most fermented foods, including kimchi and sauerkraut, are made using bacteria. Precision fermentation also uses bacteria, but they are most likely genetically engineered, as well as yeast, which is part of the fungi kingdom. But this second category, the Archaea, survives incredibly extreme environments and deserves special attention. Don't worry if that was too much info all at once. You will find this part in the show notes if you want to read it.

Today's ID the Future spotlights AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence program in the news for its impressive breakthroughs at predicting a protein's 3D structure from its amino acid sequence. Philosopher of Biology Paul Nelson walks listeners through the importance of this “amazing breakthrough,” as he describes it in a recent Evolution News article; but don't uncork the champagne bottles just yet. The reason, according to Nelson, is that while proteins, protein sequences, and protein folding promise to reveal much that is still mysterious in molecular biology, we now know that biological information involves far more than just an organism's proteome—that is, far more than the full suite of proteins expressed by an organism. Nelson uses analogies to manmade machines and cognates Read More › Source

Single-celled microbes underpin all life on Earth, and even complex organisms like humans retain a surprising amount of their microbial heritage. Life began when free molecules became encapsulated in a lipid membrane and transformed into a self-replicating entity. Subsequently, multiple cells came together, forming a remarkable symbiosis that ultimately led to all complex, eukaryotic, cells and laid the foundations for multicellular life.Understanding this microbial legacy has some surprising implications, such as explaining why some antibiotics have unwanted side effects.A lecture by Professor Robin MayThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/microbial-lifeGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/Website:  https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege

This episode: A phage both kills bacterial pathogens and selects for reduced virulence! Download Episode (6.3 MB, 9.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Helminthosporium victoriae 145S virus   News item   Takeaways Using bacteria-killing viruses to treat bacterial infections, or phage therapy, can be a good alternative to antibiotics in some situations when there are no effective antibiotics for a particular infection. But bacteria can evolve resistance to phages as well as antibiotics, often with little cost to their fitness. In this study, a phage not only could treat an infection by attacking the bacteria, but the bacterial hosts that do evolve resistance to the phage do so by getting rid of certain structures that help them to cause more serious infection. Thus, therapy with this phage may both reduce the bacterial load and also make those remaining less virulent.   Journal Paper: Kortright KE, Done RE, Chan BK, Souza V, Turner PE. 2022. Selection for Phage Resistance Reduces Virulence of Shigella flexneri. Appl Environ Microbiol 88:e01514-21. Other interesting stories: Plastic-eating bacteria could produce biodegradable plastic Harmless variant of acne bacteria could help prevent more serious skin infection   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A concern about the “evolutionary anchor” of Ajeya Cotra's report on AI timelines., published by NunoSempere on August 16, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. tl;dr: The report underestimates the amount of compute used by evolution because it only looks at what it would take to simulate neurons, rather than neurons in agents inside a complex environment. It's not clear to me what the magnitude of the error is, but it could range many, many orders of magnitude. This makes it a less forceful outside view. Background Within Effective Altruism, Ajeya Cotra's report on artificial general intelligence (AGI) timelines has been influential in justifying or convincing members and organizations to work on AGI safety. The report has a section on the "evolutionary anchor", i.e., an upper bound on how much compute it would take to reach artificial general intelligence. The section can be found in pages 24-28 of this Google doc. As a summary, in the report's own words: This hypothesis states that we should assume on priors that training computation requirements will resemble the amount of computation performed in all animal brains over the course of evolution from the earliest animals with neurons to modern humans, because we should expect our architectures and optimization algorithms to be about as efficient as natural selection. This anchor isn't all that important in the report's own terms: it only gets a 10% probability assigned to it in the final weighted average. But this bound is personally important to me because I do buy that if you literally reran evolution, or if you use as much computation as evolution, you would have a high chance of producing something as intelligent as humans, and so I think that it is particularly forceful as an "outside view". Explanation of my concern I don't buy the details of how the author arrives at the estimate of the compute used by evolution: The amount of computation done over evolutionary history can roughly be approximated by the following formula: (Length of time since earliest neurons emerged) (Total amount of computation occurring at a given point in time). My rough best guess for each of these factors is as follows: Length of evolutionary time: Virtually all animals have neurons of some form, which means that the earliest nervous systems in human evolutionary history likely emerged around the time that the Kingdom Animalia diverged from the rest of the Eukaryotes. According to timetree.org, an online resource for estimating when different taxa diverged from one another, this occurred around ~6e8 years ago. In seconds, this is ~1e16 seconds. Total amount of computation occurring at a given point in time: This blog post attempts to estimate how many individual creatures in various taxa are alive at any given point in time in the modern period. It implies that the total amount of brain computation occurring inside animals with very few neurons is roughly comparable to the amount of brain computation occurring inside the animals with the largest brains. For example, the population of nematodes (a phylum of small worms including C. Elegans) estimated to be ~1e20 to ~1e22 individuals. Assuming that each nematode performs ~10,000 FLOP/s,the number of FLOP contributed by the nematodes every second is ~1e21 1e4 = ~1e25; this doesn't count non-nematode animals with similar or fewer numbers of neurons. On the other hand, the number of FLOP/s contributed by humans is (~7e9 humans) (~1e15 FLOP/s / person) = ~7e24. The human population is vastly larger now than it was during most of our evolutionary history, whereas it is likely that the population of animals with tiny nervous systems has stayed similar. This suggests to me that the average ancestor across our entire evolutionary history was likely tiny and performed very few FLOP/s. I will as...

This episode: Tiny bacteria that live on larger bacteria reduce the inflammation and gum disease the bigger microbes cause in the mouths of mice! Download Episode (6.3 MB, 9.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Actinomadura viridilutea   Takeaways Even bacteria can be hosts to smaller symbionts living on them. Some kinds of these extremely tiny bacteria live in various parts of our bodies, and are sometimes associated with inflammation and the resulting disease. But being associated with something isn't necessarily the same as causing that thing. In this study, tiny bacteria living on other bacteria in the mouths of mice were found to reduce the inflammation caused by their bacterial hosts, resulting in less gum disease and bone loss in the jaw. Even when the tiny bacteria were no longer present, their former bacterial hosts were still less disruptive to the mouse mouth.   Journal Paper: Chipashvili O, Utter DR, Bedree JK, Ma Y, Schulte F, Mascarin G, Alayyoubi Y, Chouhan D, Hardt M, Bidlack F, Hasturk H, He X, McLean JS, Bor B. 2021. Episymbiotic Saccharibacteria suppresses gingival inflammation and bone loss in mice through host bacterial modulation. Cell Host Microbe 29:1649-1662.e7. Other interesting stories: Anti-tumor bacteria: engineered E. coli colonizes tumors and attracts immune response Cats have skin bacteria that could inhibit drug resistant pathogens   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Today we invited dr Dave Speijer again, to talk about some science with us! We talk about one of his favorite topics, namely evolution, and this time specifically about Symbiogenesis the evolution of eukaryotes.If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, papers we really need to read, or other content you would like to share. You can reach us via our website: thestrugglingscientists.com or email address: thestrugglingscientists@hotmail.comAlso, check out our website for our amazing new merch!

People are pretty well-versed in charismatic megafauna–lions and tigers and bears (and others) oh my! But have you thought about protists recently? We didn't think so. These single-celled organisms, though tiny, are essential to life on Earth. Find out more about their characteristics, purpose, and why they're so important in today's episode!Support the show

On this ID the Future from the vault, biophysicist Cornelius Hunter explains how mitochondria, the powerhouses of eukaryotic cells, pose a powerful and growing problem for evolution. For years evolutionists thought some early cells must somehow have brought other cells inside of them, and those other cells then mysteriously evolved into mitochondria. But recent research undermines that notion. Why do many evolutionists then still cling to the idea? Dr. Hunter's answer explains how a lot of evolutionary thinking persists in the face of mounting contrary evidence. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast. Source

UC San Diego Professor of Biological Sciences James T. Kadonaga hosts a one-on-one discussion with Kyoto Prize laureate in Basic Sciences, Robert Roeder. Roeder has revealed the principle of the regulatory mechanism of transcription in eukaryotes through his over 50 years of transcriptional research, by identifying functions of a series of factors such as three distinct RNA polymerases, basic transcription factors, one of the first gene-specific factors, and regulators in transcription from chromatin. Through his achievements, he has made significant contributions to develop present life science. Series: "Kyoto Prize Symposium" [Science] [Show ID: 37923]

UC San Diego Professor of Biological Sciences James T. Kadonaga hosts a one-on-one discussion with Kyoto Prize laureate in Basic Sciences, Robert Roeder. Roeder has revealed the principle of the regulatory mechanism of transcription in eukaryotes through his over 50 years of transcriptional research, by identifying functions of a series of factors such as three distinct RNA polymerases, basic transcription factors, one of the first gene-specific factors, and regulators in transcription from chromatin. Through his achievements, he has made significant contributions to develop present life science. Series: "Kyoto Prize Symposium" [Science] [Show ID: 37923]

Kyoto Prize laureate Robert Roeder has revealed the principle of the regulatory mechanism of gene transcription in eukaryotes through more than 50 years of research, by identifying the functions of a series of factors — including three distinct RNA polymerases, basic transcription factors, one of the first gene-specific factors, and regulators in transcription from chromatin. Through his achievements, he has made significant contributions to the development of the life sciences. Copyright of the drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci Illustration is held by Design Forms Of Art. Series: "Kyoto Prize Symposium" [Science] [Show ID: 37923]

Kyoto Prize laureate Robert Roeder has revealed the principle of the regulatory mechanism of gene transcription in eukaryotes through more than 50 years of research, by identifying the functions of a series of factors — including three distinct RNA polymerases, basic transcription factors, one of the first gene-specific factors, and regulators in transcription from chromatin. Through his achievements, he has made significant contributions to the development of the life sciences. Copyright of the drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci Illustration is held by Design Forms Of Art. Series: "Kyoto Prize Symposium" [Science] [Show ID: 37923]

Kyoto Prize laureate Robert Roeder has revealed the principle of the regulatory mechanism of gene transcription in eukaryotes through more than 50 years of research, by identifying the functions of a series of factors — including three distinct RNA polymerases, basic transcription factors, one of the first gene-specific factors, and regulators in transcription from chromatin. Through his achievements, he has made significant contributions to the development of the life sciences. Copyright of the drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci Illustration is held by Design Forms Of Art. Series: "Kyoto Prize Symposium" [Science] [Show ID: 37923]

This episode: Prions in yeast can allow better adaptation to changing conditions! Download Episode (9.5 MB, 13.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Hepatovirus F   News item   Takeaways Prions can be deadly. They're misshapen proteins that cause a cascade of misfolding of similar proteins if they get into the nervous system, resulting in neurodegeneration in mammals. But in other organisms, they are not always so scary; some fungi use prions to regulate their behavior in varying conditions.   In this study, a prion allows yeast to switch between a fast-growing lifestyle with shorter reproductive lifespan that can be beneficial in conditions where nutrients are often plentiful, and a slower-growing but more enduring lifestyle that helps in more scarce conditions.   Journal Paper: Garcia DM, Campbell EA, Jakobson CM, Tsuchiya M, Shaw EA, DiNardo AL, Kaeberlein M, Jarosz DF. 2021. A prion accelerates proliferation at the expense of lifespan. eLife 10:e60917. Other interesting stories: Modified yeast probiotic could tune its effects as needed by sensing bowel inflammation   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Bacteria living inside soil fungus produce toxins that can protect their host from tiny predators! Download Episode (7.7 MB, 11.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Mycobacterium virus DLane Takeaways Soils have many different organisms cooperating and competing for resources. Some little worms called nematodes prey on fungi in the soil, while fungi may effectively defend themselves or strike back with toxins or traps that catch and kill the worms. On top of these interactions are other organisms that interact in various ways. In this study, bacteria living inside a kind of soil fungus produce toxins that defend the fungus against predatory nematodes.   Journal Paper: Büttner H, Niehs SP, Vandelannoote K, Cseresnyés Z, Dose B, Richter I, Gerst R, Figge MT, Stinear TP, Pidot SJ, Hertweck C. 2021. Bacterial endosymbionts protect beneficial soil fungus from nematode attack. Proc Natl Acad Sci 118:e2110669118. Other interesting stories: Sequencing stomach bacteria to find out how prehistoric populations migrated   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Certain nectar-dwelling bacteria can induce pollen to germinate to access their tasty proteins! Download Episode (6.0 MB, 8.8 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Clostridium oceanicum   News item   Takeaways Nectar in flowers seems like it would be a great place for microbes to live, since it has so much sugar, but it's actually somewhat difficult to thrive solely in and on nectar. The carbon in sugar is only one essential element for life, and there's enough of it that it can be overwhelming to the osmotic balance of many microbes. Pollen could provide more nutrients in the form of protein and the nitrogen that comes with it, but it is difficult to penetrate its hard shell.   In this study, certain kinds of bacteria that live in nectar were able to access more pollen protein than other microbes by inducing pollen to germinate, growing out of its shell, or burst and release the protein directly. These microbes only benefited from pollen that were still alive and able to germinate, and not from those that had been disabled.   Journal Paper: Christensen SM, Munkres I, Vannette RL. 2021. Nectar bacteria stimulate pollen germination and bursting to enhance microbial fitness. Curr Biol 31:4373-4380.e6. Other interesting stories: Bacteria recycling plastic into vanilla flavor   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

In the 2nd part of the Origin of Eukaryotes series, Dara and Jatin sit down with Dr. Dylan G Ryan from University of Cambridge (formerly at Trinity College Dublin) to discuss his 2020 perspective article about the role of TCA cycle in Eukaryogenesis.Check out our memes on Facebook (@antibuddies), Twitter (@antibuddiesP), and Instagram (@AntibuddiesPodcast).Website: Antibuddies – Science Communication & Immunology (Antibuddies.org)Join us on our monthly journal club at our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxyrHotyyY3sSwcp1zigeCwSend us your queries/questions/suggestions at antibuddies1@gmail.com.Article of discussion: TCA cycle signalling and the evolution of eukaryotes (nih.gov)

In the 1st part of the Origin of Eukaryotes series, Dara and Jatin sit down with Dr. Dylan G Ryan from University of Cambridge (formerly at Trinity College Dublin) to discuss his 2020 perspective article about the role of TCA cycle in Eukaryogenesis.

This episode: A eukaryote has symbionts living in it: green algae and also purple bacteria, a combo never seen before! Download Episode (6.1 MB, 8.8 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Staphylococcus virus phiETA   News item   Takeaways Having bacteria as endosymbionts is fairly common in life on Earth: almost all eukaryotes have them in the form of mitochondria and sometimes chloroplasts. These former bacteria somehow got inside the ancestral eukaryote, either as parasites or as prey, and ended up as integral parts of their host's metabolic functions. Some organisms, especially insects, obtained bacterial endosymbionts more recently, that help them balance their metabolic needs when living on limited diets.   Algae have been known to be endosymbionts also, performing photosynthesis for their host. But in this study, a ciliate with both algae and purple photosynthetic bacteria as endosymbionts was discovered. Purple bacteria as symbionts is rare, and this combination has not been observed before. Interestingly, though algae produce oxygen through their photosynthesis, the ciliate prefers living in low-oxygen sediment at the bottom of a pond. The symbionts and their host seem to adjust their metabolisms as needed depending on the needs at the time; they may each perform photosynthesis, fermentation, or respiration if light, organic carbon, or oxygen are available.   Journal Paper: Muñoz-Gómez SA, Kreutz M, Hess S. 2021. A microbial eukaryote with a unique combination of purple bacteria and green algae as endosymbionts. Sci Adv 7:eabg4102. Other interesting stories: Oxygen-producing microbes could help treat acute strokes   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

My AP Biology Thoughts  Unit 5 HeredityWelcome to My AP Biology Thoughts podcast, my name is Helena Holley and I am your host for episode #109 called Unit 6 gene expression and regulation: Regulation of gene expression. Today we will be discussing the mechanism of gene expressions and regulation in Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes. Segment 1: Introduction to Gene Expression and Regulation Gene expression and its regulation and control is essential for cell specialization in Eukaryotes. All cells have the same information, however their differences in function come from which genes they express. As you go through development cells are differentiated. The way this happens is by specific transcription factors and translation controls that tell the cells which genes they are expressing as you develop. Your basic genetics are not the only thing that determines which genes are expressed, epigenetics also plays a role. Certain environmental factors that occur in a parents lifetime can alter the gene expression of offspring. This happens when there are changes in the parents' cells that undergo meiosis to produce gametes. Examples of this include DNA methylation and histone modification. While I was just discussing eukaryotes above, gene expression and regulation is also important in prokaryotes, which I will discuss more later.  Segment 2: More About Gene Expression and RegulationThere are various ways in which gene expression is regulated in Eukaryotes. One regulation method is determined by how tightly DNA is wrapped around Histone proteins. The tighter the DNA is wrapped, the harder it is for transcription to take place, and certain enzymes can alter how tight or loose it is wrapped depending on what needs to happen. There are also chromatin-modifying enzymes that can make the DNA more or less accessible. Another regulatory factor is the Control elements which are regulatory sequences on DNA that control the expression of proteins. Alternative RNA splicing helps to regulate post transcription, as it produces different mRNA from the same gene. Another useful method is mRNA degradation which is used to break down mRNA if the protein is not needed to be expressed anymore. Finally, various regulatory proteins can block initiation of translation if that is needed. It is important to note that mRNA is not the only type of RNA used for regulation, and there are various types of non-coding RNA that have different functions in regulation of gene expression. In prokaryotes there are repressible and inducible operons. The repressible operon genes are able to be silenced, and the inducible operon genes are able to be turned on. This function of these operons is important in gene regulation because if a repressible operon is absent, the repressor is inactive and the operon will be produced. When too much of a repressible operon is in the cell, it will bind to the repressor which will bind to the operator, preventing any more from being produced. For inducible operons, the process works essentially the opposite of the repressible operons (so briefly the repressor is active when there is an absence of lac operon, and it is inactive when there is presence lac operon).  Segment 3: Connection to the CourseGene expression and regulation is important because any errors in regulation can lead to developmental problems. For example, If the tumor suppressor gene is silenced due DNA methylation occurring in the parent, the offspring would be very susceptible to cancer and disease. Another reason why the regulation of expression of genes is important is because not having all genes turned on all the time, conserves a lot of energy and space. It is a lot more efficient to only turn on genes when they are required. Additionally, if every gene was being expressed, cells would have to be much larger because DNA has to be unwound in order to transcribe and translate it.  Thank you for listening to this episode of My AP Biology...

My AP Biology Thoughts  Unit 2 Cell Structure and FunctionWelcome to My AP Biology Thoughts podcast, my name is Chloe and I am your host for episode #49 called Unit 2 Cell Structure and Function: Comparing and Contrasting the Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cells. Today we will be discussing the comparison between the functions and structures of these two cell types.  Segment 1: Introduction to Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes The main difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells is the presence of the nucleus and other internal membranes. This lack of membrane in prokaryotic cells often causes them to lack crucial organelles which are present in Eukaryotic cells.  In Eukaryotic cells, the genetic information, the DNA, is held within the nucleus.  In a prokaryotic cell, the genetic material is carried on a singular piece of DNA which is attached to the cell membrane, and there is no enclosing membrane which causes the genetic information to come into direct contact with the cytoplasm. (This whole system is called a nucleoid, a concentration of DNA)  Overall, the main difference is the presence of membrane bound organelles in eukaryotic cells, and absolutely no membrane bound organelles or a nucleus at all in prokaryotic cells.  Segment 2: More About Prokaryotes and EukaryotesGoing more in depth, prokaryotes are ultimately unicellular organisms. In contrast, eukaryotic organisms can be unicellular, but eukaryotes are the building blocks of larger organisms  Two examples of prokaryotes include bacteria and archaea. Eukaryotic cells make up everything besides these two organisms including fungi, plants, and animals. Specific similarities between the organelles present in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells is that they both contain a plasma membrane, ribosomes, cytoplasm, and DNA. Although they carry genetic information differently, it is important to remember that they both still possess it.  It's important to understand the origin of these two different cells, and how it came about that they have different contents. According to the endosymbiotic theory, it is believed that two or more prokaryotic cells, living in a symbiotic relationship with each other, ultimately evolved into the mitochondria, present in only eukaryotic cells. One prokaryotic may have engulfed another, created an enclosed membrane for the new organelles that were being created by the presence of two prokaryotic cells.  Segment 3: Connection to the CourseThe endosymbiotic theory is very critical to the evolution aspect of all living things. Because two prokaryotic cells were able to work together in their own beneficial way to make a eukaryotic cell, which now make up all living things besides bacteria and archaea, is very significant. Once the eukaryotic cells were created, evolution was able to take its course, and lead us to where we are now. The creation of the membrane bound nucleus in eukaryotic cells made a huge structural difference, and made complex evolution possible. Overall, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells play a major role in the biological world, but it is especially important to appreciate how the eukaryotic cells were created, and how evolution took place after this occurrence.  Thank you for listening to this episode of My AP Biology Thoughts. For more student-ran podcasts and digital content, make sure that you visit http://www.hvspn.com/ (www.hvspn.com). See you next time! Music Credits:“Ice Flow” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Subscribe to our Podcasthttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-ap-biology-thoughts/id1549942575 (Apple Podcasts) https://open.spotify.com/show/1nH8Ft9c9f6dmo75V9imCk?si=IvI4iQV-SSaFb0ZmvTabxg (Spotify) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5jYXB0aXZhdGUuZm0vbXlhcGJpb2xvZ3l0aG91Z2h0cw (Google...

My AP Biology Thoughts  Unit 2 Cell Structure and FunctionWelcome to My AP Biology Thoughts podcast, my name is Nidhi and I am your host for episode #51 called Unit 2 Cell Structure and Function: Comparing the Energy Related Organelles. Today we will be discussing the similarities and differences between the mitochondria and chloroplast.  Segment 1: Introduction to the energy related organelles Both eukaryotes and prokaryote cells need energy to function. Eukaryotes rely on the mitochondria and chloroplast to provide their cell with energy. The Mitochondria and the chloroplast also both contain their own DNA and are able to grow and reproduce independently within the cell. Mitochondria are found in plant and animal cells while chloroplasts are found only in plant cells. The mitochondria work to convert oxygen and nutrients into ATP through a process known as cellular respiration. Without a mitochondrion, many animals would not exist because they would not be able to obtain enough energy. The mitochondria enable cells to produce 15 times more ATP than they could otherwise. The number of mitochondria in a cell depends on the metabolic requirements of that cell. They were first discovered in the 1800s but until the 1950s they were believed to transmit hereditary information. In contrast, the chloroplast produces energy through photosynthesis. It has a high concentration of chlorophyll, the molecule that captures light energy, and this gives many plants green color. Chloroplasts are essential for the growth and survival of plants and photosynthetic algae. Chloroplasts take light energy and convert it into energy stored in the form of sugar and other organic materials. Cells need both chloroplasts and mitochondria to undergo both photosynthesis and cell respiration. After photosynthesis, which occurs through the chloroplast, that produces oxygen and glucose, plants need to break down the glucose and they use cellular respiration to do this, which happens in the mitochondria. There Is one plant that does not have a chloroplast, Rafflesia, which obtains its nutrients from other plants. Since it gets all of its energy from parasitizing another plant, it no longer needs its chloroplasts, and has lost the genes coding for the development of the it. Segment 2: More About the the Mitochondria and Chloroplasts There are many similarities and differences between the structures of the 2 organelles. Mitochondria have an inner and outer membrane, with an intermembrane space between them. The outer membrane contains proteins known as porins, which allow the movement of ions into and out of the mitochondrion. The space within the inner membrane of the mitochondria is known as the matrix, which contains the enzymes of the Krebs and fatty acid cycles, alongside DNA, RNA, ribosomes and calcium granules. The inner membrane contains a variety of enzymes. It contains ATP synthase which generates ATP in the matrix, and transport proteins that regulate the movement of molecules into and out of the matrix. The inner membrane is arranged into folds known as cristae in order to increase the surface area available for energy production. Chloroplasts are surrounded by a double membrane similar to the double membrane found within a mitochondrion. Within the chloroplast is a third membrane that forms stacked, disc-shaped structures called thylakoids. Embedded in the thylakoid membrane are molecules of chlorophyll. A stack of thylakoids is called a granum, and the space surrounding the granum is called the stroma. Just like the structure of the mitochondria was important to its ability to perform aerobic cellular respiration, the structure of the chloroplast allows the process of photosynthesis to take place. Segment 3: Connection to the CourseThe mitochondria and chloroplast can be connected to the greater theme of cell organelle functions and the endosymbiotic theory. The similar function of the mitochondria and...

What are the differences between Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes? This episode begins by discussing the essential components that all cells need and then transitions into in-depth explanations on Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes. The episode closes with a comparison between the two cell types. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to https://anchor.fm/christopher-jang/message or https://2255christopher.wixsite.com/biotime/questions

Key points addressed: Assess the effect of the cell replication processes on the continuity of species Construct appropriate representations to model and compare the forms in which DNA exists in eukaryotes and prokaryotes Thanks to STEM Reactor for sponsoring this podcast. They provide everything you need to do biotechnology at school, check them out at www.stemreactor.com.au

Strand structure, protection factors (proks have none), and starting A2 (proks = fmet // euks = met)

Emma goes through everything you need to know about cells, from their size to their common ancestry. She also looks at two main types of cells, prokaryotes and eukaryotes, highlighting their key features. Ideal for preparing you for your High School Biology Exam. Click here for the full course, or visit this link: http://bit.ly/35WuyZy

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall. 00:00:45 Help support the show! 00:01:58 Another theory for Tabby's Star - still not aliens. 00:15:47 The bacteria in babies' guts may end up the same no matter how they were delivered. 00:21:21 Could a brief spike of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere 2.3 billion years ago have been a "false start" for complex life? 00:26:47 DNA is usually made up of G, A, T and C. But scientists in the US have modified bacteria to use two new molecules - X and Y!   This episode contains traces of Colin Jost announcing the results of a study into sleeping patterns, on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update, February 04 2017.