Hunter writes:
Greetings TWiM crew!
I recently learned of a new game (currently getting ready for Alpha and crowd funding) where players will edit microbes at the genetic level and pit them against microbes created by other players. The game is called CURE, and can be found here: http://curethegame.com/
It claims to be accurate based on current scientific knowledge, and to have been reviewed by teachers and scientists.
Being a gamer and super interested in Microbiology, this was right up my ally and I figured I probably wasn’t the only TWiX fan who would be interested in this.
____________________
Hunter
QA Analyst 3 : Hearthstone
Blizzard Entertainment
Anthony writes:
Tardigrade creed art
https://cottonbureau.com/products/live-tiny-tardigrade
Dennis writes:
Hi Docs, regarding TWIM #120 and tubeworm metamorphosis stimulated by a bacterium, what a fascinating observation. Dr. Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan in their book, “Acquiring Genomes”, have a chapter titled Seaworthy Alliances in which Dr. Donald I. Williamson’s work is quoted in which he claimed that invertebrates owed their transformations from larval forms to radically different looking adult forms to “acquired genomes”. He did experiments to cross Invertebrate sea urchin fathers (Echinua escalentus) with Chordate mother sea squirts (Ascidia mentula). “Not only did the fertilized eggs survive this bizarre coupling but they developed fully paternal larvae, the immature forms called plutei.” … “Some of these weird hybrid forms survived up to 90 days from hatching.” There’s much more detail and he begged for some independent group to try the same experiments but I’ve never heard more of this kind of work. Margulis’s entire book was dealing with the question of how some animals develop with wildly different phases, for example from embryo to larva to pupa to adult. I wonder if the observation of the bacterium stimulating a tubeworm transformation will also stimulate more work in either expanding on or correcting the theory of acquired genomes in higher forms of animals. Have you any thoughts on the theory of acquired genomes? We know that many life forms acquire viral DNA (and bacterial DNA?). How about higher forms of acquired DNA? Thanks,
Dennis