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ANT CONTRIBUTION. "The formicine ants represent about 10% of all ant species and their estimated 100 trillion individuals may produce on a global basis as much as ten billion (10(13)) kilograms of atmospheric formic acid each year." Human production of formic acid in 2008 was a mere 720 million kg. https://lnkd.in/e4HnhCR View in LinkedIn

CURIOUS CODE. Mobile genetic code elements are rather like viral computer codes gone native. Not part of a complete organism, unregulated scraps of genetic information that can attach to the Master Code of a target organism, mutate and evolve, replicate, cross species, and skip at will to a new host. At times very destructive, at others perhaps accidentally beneficial. Simply weird. View in LinkedIn

DOWNSIDES OF MOBILITY. "Public health officials have raised concerns that plasmid transfer between Enterobacteriaceae species may spread resistance to carbapenems, an antibiotic class of last resort, thereby rendering common health care–associated infections nearly impossible to treat." https://lnkd.in/ei4d4uT View in LinkedIn

MOBILE GENES. "We all know that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a problem – maybe even 'as big a risk as terrorism' – but how is this resistance passed on from one bug to another? One key culprit is plasmids: these are small 'hula hoops' of DNA that occur naturally within the cells of bacteria (and some eukaryotes) and are completely independent of the main bacterial genome." https://lnkd.in/eNHPm6b View in LinkedIn

THE MANY EDGES OF EVOLUTION. "The hallmark genes of viruses, those that encode key proteins involved in genome replication and virion formation, are represented in a broad range of elements that form many edges in the evolutionary network." https://lnkd.in/eqriJpu View in LinkedIn

NO EVE. "Viruses and other selfish elements do not share a single common ancestor; indeed, not a single gene is conserved in all or even most of these genomes. However, selfish elements form a complex, dense network of evolutionary relationships in which genomes are linked through different shared genes. This type of evolutionary relationship is most likely to have emerged from extensive gene exchange." https://lnkd.in/eqriJpu View in LinkedIn

VAST DIVERSITY. "All cellular life forms, with the possible exception of some extremely reduced intracellular parasites, are hosts to viruses and/or other selfish elements, such as transposons and plasmids. This ‘greater virus world’ is enormously diverse in terms of replication mechanisms, gene-expression mechanisms, virion structure, and genome structure and size." https://lnkd.in/eqriJpu View in LinkedIn

PRIONS are biological rule breakers. So are other mobile parasitic or symbiotic genetic elements that include plasmids, transposons and other freaky elements of code. These are stray pieces of orphan genetic code that have gained strange autonomy from the cellular machinery. Pieces of floating DNA which introduce diversity in unexpected ways, and whose genetic freshness is a driver of evolution. View in LinkedIn

AND SO ENDS our journey into the quirky, creative, and still mysterious world of the Formicine ant, which is completely centered around formic acid for defense and hygiene. These tiny creatures have a massive impact on tropical forest atmospheres. Evolution has designed them to behave as a superorganism, where the individual is an expendable element of the greater organism. View in LinkedIn

NO STUDIES have convincingly addressed why insects such as formicine ants can survive storing, showering and breathing in 80% formic acid without severe respiratory and tissue damage. This systemic exposure to such a toxin without adverse effects remains a mystery. https://lnkd.in/e8TW9gg View in LinkedIn