biologyislove:

‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Maybe Right Here on Earth

SAN DIEGO — Here in a laboratory perched on the edge of the continent, researchers are trying to construct Life As We Don’t Know It in a thimbleful of liquid.

Life Out There

From Inanimate to Animate

Articles in this series examine the search for new forms of life in the universe.

Generations of scientists, children and science fiction fans have grown up presuming that humanity’s first encounter with alien life will happen in a red sand dune on Mars, or in an enigmatic radio signal from some obscure star.

But it could soon happen right here on Earth, according to a handful of chemists and biologists who are using the tools of modern genetics to try to generate the Frankensteinian spark that will jump the gap separating the inanimate and the animate. The day is coming, they say, when chemicals in a test tube will come to life.

By some measures, Gerald F. Joyce, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute here, has already crossed that line, although he would be the first to say he has not — yet.

Biologists do not agree on what the definition of life should be or whether it is even useful to have one. But most do agree that the ability to evolve and adapt is fundamental to life. And they also agree that having a second example of life could provide insight to how it began and how special life is or is not in the universe, as well as a clue for how to recognize life if and when we do stumble upon it out there among the stars.

“Everything we know about life is based on studies of life on Earth,” said Chris McKay, a researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Laboratory in Mountain View, Calif.

Dr. Joyce said recently: “It drives me crazy when astronomers say, ‘Surely the universe is pregnant with life.’ If we have an Earthlike planet, what are the chances of life arising? Is it one in a million? Is it one in two? I don’t see how you can say.”

He continued, “If you had a second example of life, even if it were synthetic, you might know better. I’m betting we’re just going to make it.”

Four years ago Dr. Joyce and a graduate student, Tracey A. Lincoln, now a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, evolved a molecule in a test tube that could replicate and evolve all by itself, swapping little jerry-built genes in a test tube forever, as long as it was supplied with the right carefully engineered ingredients.

An article in the Joyce Laboratory newsletter called it “The Immortal Molecule.” Dr. Joyce’s molecule is a form of RNA, or ribonucleic acid, which plays Robin to DNA’s Batman in Life As We Do Know It, assembling proteins in accordance with the blueprint encoded in DNA. Neither RNA nor DNA is alive by itself, any more than any other chemical, like bleach, or a protein. But in Dr. Joyce’s test tube, his specially engineered RNA molecule comes close, copying itself over and over, and evolving.

But, Dr. Joyce says, “We really would hope for more from our molecules than just replicating.”

Reproduction is the job of any life, he explained, but Earthly organisms have evolved a spectacular set of tricks to improve the odds of success — everything from peacock feathers to whale songs. Dr. Joyce’s molecules have not yet surprised him by striking out on their own to invent the molecular equivalent of writing a hit pop song.

It is only a matter of time, he said, before they do.

“Our job is to give them the running room to do that,” Dr. Joyce said.

The deeper philosophical and intellectual ramifications of test tube life are as enormous as they are unknown. The achievement would probably not come with sci-fi drama, say scientists who are squeamish about such matters anyway, saying such speculation is beyond their pay grade. No microbe is going to leap out of the Petri dish and call home, or turn the graduate students into zombies. Indeed, given the human penchant for argument and scientists’ habit of understatement, it could be years before everybody agrees it has been done.

crystilogic:

Patrick J. Lynch, illustration of the anatomy of the mediastinum (2006).

(via crystilogic)

Cephalopods 

Being a male octopus isn’t so great after sex. 

In male cephalopods, an arm called the hectocotylus is adapted to deliver sperm to the female. Roy Caldwell of the University of California, Berkeley, studies the complex reproductive behaviour of Indo-Pacific octopuses. In this picture taken off Sulawesi, Indonesia, a male Abdopus aculeatuson the left is inserting his hectocotylus into the female on the right – just beneath her eyes – to deliver a spermatophore. This arm breaks off from the male during copulation and stays lodged in the female. 

The hectocotylus regenerates after the mating episode. 

(Image: Roy L. Caldwell, University of California, Berkeley)

(via ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology)

mothernaturenetwork:

We wouldn’t allow mining in the Grand Canyon … would we?

Debt ceiling proposals not so eco-friendly
The GOP has nearly 40 anti-environmental proposals in its debt plan. We parse through five of the most significant items.

1. Delay in carbon regulation
It’s hard to reduce the amount of carbon pollution in our atmosphere if you can’t regulate emissions from “stationary sources.” Yet, that is what Section 431 of the bill would do.

2. Oil companies don’t have to comply with Clean Air Act requirements
Section 443 of the Republican proposal includes a directive to amend the Clean Air Act in a few ways.
 
3. GOP gives green light to mountaintop removal mining
Of the 39 GOP proposals that take aim at the environment, two of them make it easier for mountaintop removal mining to continue.
 
4. Wild lands order put on hold
In December 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the government would designate millions of acres in the American West as “Wild Lands.” This would allow the Bureau of Land Management to manage these acres, but Section 124 calls for essentially sticking a knife in the Salazar plan once and for all.
 
5. Grand Canyon to be opened for uranium mining
As if the views of the Grand Canyon weren’t glowing enough, Republicans in the House want it to be a beacon of uranium production. Section 455 of their appropriations bill would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from implementing a land withdrawal to protect the Grand Canyon from new uranium mining claims.

Luckily, there’s little chance that all the proposals will be approved by the Senate, which Democrats control. In fact, one measure — to forbid the Fish and Wildlife Service to list any new plants or animals as endangered — was so extreme that 37 Republicans broke ranks Wednesday and voted to strip it from the bill.

Learn more about the proposals.

If you’re going to be an asshole I don’t need you.

(Source: talkingwiththem00n, via repulsed)

If you bite my lip or neck.

milanaphrodite:

You better start taking your fucking clothes off, just sayin’.

(Source: jediwolf, via maaattitties)

missjesc:

You give respect, you earn it.

You can’t come off rude and disrespectful and expect someone to treat you with some dignity. If you want something from someone, you must go halfway. Nothing in life is free these days.Don’t be a bitch and then expect others to treat you like a pampered princess. There’s a certain degree of capitalism in manners. You get what you earn. 

(via just-a-nice-guy)