Year: 2022

SIMPLE ORGANISM, COMPLEX BEAST. "Consider this sobering lesson: the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is a tiny creature whose brain has 302 nerve cells. Back in 1986, scientists used electron microscopy to painstakingly map its roughly 6000 chemical synapses and its complete wiring diagram. Yet more than two decades later, there is still no working model of how this minimal nervous system functions." https://lnkd.in/dUt32Gf View in LinkedIn

Early morning bee. View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE for this and next weekend considers why there are typically two or more sexes in organisms, and looks at how varied nature is in this regard. The fundings may be rather surprising, but nature has a theme of constant experimentation with diverse modes of being, and this is no exception. View in LinkedIn

“THE TWO SEXES are usually produced in approximately equal numbers” but exceptions are quite widespread in nature. https://lnkd.in/e2CjiWF View in LinkedIn

ONE NORM. “In animals and plants that have evolved separate sexes, accurate differentiation into fertile males and females is a fundamental developmental process.” https://lnkd.in/dHNc_hg View in LinkedIn

INFINITE SEXES. “Populations of most isogamous protists have gametes that belong to one of only two mating-types (alias sexes). That this should be so is paradoxical for, if there is any cost involved in the finding of a mate, then a gamete of a third mating-type would, at the point of invasion, be able to mate with the first gamete it encounters, hence suffering the minimum possible costs. The expectation is hence that the number of mating-types in most isogamous species should tend towards infinity.” https://lnkd.in/d9iAAMt View in LinkedIn

BIOECONOMICS. “By the same logic, two mating-types is the least expected state. A demonstration of the evolution from three to two sexes, under the condition of costs to mate-finding, has yet to be provided.” http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/263/1369/415.short View in LinkedIn

CYTOPLASMIC GENES. “Species with two mating-types coordinate uniparental inheritance of cytoplasmic genes more efficiently than do those with three, then, assuming the costs to mate finding are not too high, evolution from three to two sexes is expected as a response to the invasion of a costly selfish cytoplasmic factor that disrupts the normal pattern of inheritance.” http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/263/1369/415.short View in LinkedIn