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THE MOLECULAR HEART. "We can now say that many—maybe all—nematodes are communicating by secreting small molecules to build chemical structures called ascarosides," says Sternberg, whose past research in C. elegans found that those worms secrete ascarosides both as a sexual attractant and as a way to control the social behavior of aggregation. "It's really exciting and a big breakthrough that tells us what to look for and how we, too, might be able to communicate with this entire phylum of animals." https://lnkd.in/d6Gc9fp View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE. We are far from cracking the language of birds, dolphins, whales and monkeys, despite their overt vocalizations. It turns out that we know more about ant, bacterial and worm communication than all those other big creatures put together. It is inherently true that any creature with a complex society must have an associated language. It turns out, surprising to some, that worm-speak has both syntax and modular structure. View in LinkedIn

ALPHABET SIZE UNKNOWN. “The researchers have only just begun to identify what these messages are. As you heard, adding one more chemical to the signal for “go away” changes the meaning to “come here.” It's still unknown how big the worms' “alphabet” of signaling chemicals is, or how many different chemicals may be used in a single message. It's clear, though, that worm language may be extremely different from ours, but it's built on one similar principle, which is that it's better to rearrange a smaller set of signals than to come up with a new signal for everything you want to say.” https://lnkd.in/eQAQ5eZ View in LinkedIn

WORM SYNTAX. “Scientists already knew that nematodes communicate with each other using chemical signals. This study, however, found that those chemicals have their own syntax, or rules for arranging elements into different meanings. In other words, the worms don't just use one chemical for each possible message. They combine two, three, or more chemicals at a time, and each combination has a different meaning, just like letters and words.” https://lnkd.in/eQAQ5eZ View in LinkedIn

DECODING MOLECULAR CHATTER. “As a next step, the researchers will explore how the worms' nervous system senses and deciphers the different chemical messages. "Understanding the worm's language is just a first step -- we now need to figure out how the worm decodes and makes these molecules.” https://lnkd.in/eaB_YWn View in LinkedIn

WHY NOT #1. "Apvrille and Lovet argued that both scenarios are possible, with a few caveats to each. Scientists have already synthesized viruses such as polio and SARS for research purposes, so it's conceivable that someone could synthesize viruses as bioweaponry." https://lnkd.in/dmzuNWh View in LinkedIn

WHAT IF? "The origins of each virus are strikingly different: A computer virus is designed, whereas a biological virus evolves under pressure from natural selection. But what would happen if these origins are switched? Could hackers code for a super-virus, or a computer virus emerge out of the information "wilderness" and evolve over time?" https://lnkd.in/dmzuNWh View in LinkedIn

ACT OF GOD. "It is important to note, however, that none of these characteristics came from the viruses themselves. Rather, each change and addition to virus behavior has been wrought by an outside agency: the programmer." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn

LATENT. "Some viruses also exhibit self-protective behavior, including camouflage techniques." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn

TERRITORIAL. "Other viruses exhibit territorial behavior — marking their infected domain so that others of the same type will not enter and compete with the original infection." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn