Month: September 2022

NANOSPIDERS MADE OF DNA. "Two spiders are walking along a track – a seemingly ordinary scene, but these are no ordinary spiders. They are molecular robots and they, like the tracks they stride over, are fashioned from DNA." http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6198/795 View in LinkedIn

NANOSPIDERS. "One of them has four legs and marches over its DNA landscape, turning and stopping with no controls from its human creators. The other has four legs and three arms – it walks along a miniature assembly line, picking up three pieces of cargo from loading machines (also made of DNA) and attaching them to itself." http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6198/795 View in LinkedIn

CONTEXTUAL PROGRAMMING. "The two robots are the stars of two new papers that describe the latest advances in making independent, programmable nano-scale robots out of individual molecules. The two new studies have solved this problem by programming the robots’ actions into their environment rather than their bodies." http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6198/795 View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR BOT. "Kyle Lund’s robot (which he does actually call a spider) can move about completely of its own accord. Its program is completely written into its landscape. The spider’s body is a molecule called streptavidin and each of its legs are single-stranded ‘DNAzymes’ – one half of the famous double helix, with the added ability to cut other DNA strands. In doing so, it shortens the length of any strand that it happens to walk on." http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6198/795 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE deals with the genetics of the sense of place for this and next weekend. Frustrating, illusive, and challenging characterizes the hunt for migratory genes. But the physical gene itself is only the start. How can a string of nucleotides communicate a journey and a destination? And time after time to millions of creatures, and be plastic enough to modify as the climate changes? A challenge perhaps beyond our capacity to seriously consider. At least, for now. View in LinkedIn

SONG OF DARWIN. "The more I study nature, the more I become impressed […] that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations [acquired through natural selection] transcend in an incomparable degree [those] which the most fertile imagination of the most imaginative man could suggest with unlimited time at his disposal." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214003881 View in LinkedIn

MIGRATIONS of birds, Monarch butterflies, Painted Lady butterflies, hummingbirds, salmon, wildebeest, whales, and other creatures almost always requires that the journey map and final destination coordinates are somehow passed to the next generation without social learning, and passed inheritable from one generation to another, often with extreme specificity for locations. https://lnkd.in/djNBZc5 View in LinkedIn

VARIABLE ROUTES. "Considerable variation has been documented in the orientation of migratory routes (e.g., across years for individual wood thrushes; within populations of humpback whales; and between populations of monarch butterflies." https://lnkd.in/dWFycUQ View in LinkedIn

GENETIC BASIS SUSPECTED. "Several lines of evidence, including quantitative genetic analyses and experimental approaches, suggest that this variation may be partially genetically determined, derived from standing genetic variation and controlled by a few genes of large effect; experimental approaches include displacement; and common gardens." https://lnkd.in/dWFycUQ View in LinkedIn

PAINTED LADY BUTTERFLY MIGRATION. "The findings also revealed that the species undertakes a phenomenal 9,000 mile round trip from tropical Africa to the Arctic Circle – almost double the length of the famous migrations undertaken by Monarch butterflies in North America." A record holder. https://lnkd.in/dbZX3Du View in LinkedIn