21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-12-19 04:55:33

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CONSTRAINTS OF COMPLEXITY. “These results are also notable because the inferred patterns of ancestral species sometimes lie outside the range of patterns of their living descendants, and illustrate how development imposes constraints on the evolution of complex phenotypes.” https://lnkd.in/dwfZQzE View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-12-19 04:53:00

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SHADOW OF THE MIND. “The pigmentation patterns of shells in the genus Conus can be generated by a neural-network model of the mantle. We fit model parameters to the shell pigmentation patterns of 19 living Conus species for which a well resolved phylogeny is available.” https://lnkd.in/dwfZQzE View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments
linkedin post 2020-12-19 04:51:24

linkedin post 2020-12-19 04:51:24

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MEDICINAL USES. “Ziconotide, a pain reliever 1,000 times as powerful as morphine, was initially isolated from the venom of the magician cone snail, Conus magus. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2004 under the name "Prialt". Other drugs are in clinical and preclinical trials, such as compounds of the toxin that may be used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, and epilepsy.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_snail View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-12-19 04:49:06

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CONE SHELLS. “This group of sea snails shows a large variety of colors and patterns, and local varieties and color forms of the same species often occur. This has led to the creation of a large number of known synonyms and probable synonyms, making it difficult to give an exact taxonomic assignment for many snails in this genus. As of 2009, more than 3,200 different species names have been assigned, with an average of 16 new species names introduced each year.” https://lnkd.in/dxxf7qQ View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-12-19 04:46:40

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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE for this and next weekend deals with cone shell patterning. For me, it is a testament to human curiosity that adults can spend lifetimes studying peacock feathers, beetle casings, the patterning of shells, or equally seemingly unimportant things; the reality is that these offer wonderful insights into things like photonic crystals, and the mathematics of chaos, and so much more. Thank you D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson. View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-12-18 03:40:03

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THE PROTEIN UNIVERSE. “It is increasingly accepted that protein evolution has occurred by shuffling of DNA sequences. If nature explored all the possible sequences for a protein of 100 residues, 2(100) proteins would have been produced. It has been calculated that if only 1 μg of each protein was synthesised, the required starting materials would have a mass (1.27 × 10(124) g) greater than that of the earth (5.98 × 10(27) g).” https://lnkd.in/d5kyh6v View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments
linkedin post 2020-12-18 03:38:46

linkedin post 2020-12-18 03:38:46

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SECOND RING. “The outer van Allen radiation belt consists mainly of electrons in the energy range from hundreds of keV to several MeV. The electrons reside colocated with the ring current and the plasmasphere in the inner magnetosphere, roughly from 3 RE to slightly beyond geostationary orbit.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn
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