How Insects 'Remodel' Their Bodies Between Life Stages

"ScienceDaily (Feb. 29, 2012) — It's one of life's special moments: a child finds a fat caterpillar, puts it in a jar with a twig and a few leaves, and awakens one day to find the caterpillar has disappeared and an elegant but apparently lifeless case now hangs from the twig."

How is it that a creature can appear to be a completely different creature multiple times in its lifetime?

"Working with fruit flies rather than butterflies, a team led by Ian and Dianne Duncan of Washington University in St. Louis provides part of the answer in the latest issue of PNAS. Ian Duncan, PhD, is professor of biology in Arts & Sciences; Dianne Duncan is a research associate and director of the Biology Imaging Facility."

Like most insects, fruit flies go through three main phases: the larva, pupae, and adult.

Earlier research has shown that both the larvae and the adults of insect species have similar "signaling systems" patterning them; or "chains of biochemicals that transfer a signal from receptors on the surface of cells to target genes in cell nuclei."


Scientists, however, could not understand how the same systems can both orchestrate the formation of larvae and adults.


Collaborating researchers were able to reveal that a gene expressed only in the pupal stage "redirects signaling systems so that they can activate a different set of target genes than in earlier stages."


The gene itself is controlled by a steroid hormone that turns on a variety of other genes as well.


"So insect metamorphosis, triggered by a hormone, resembles puberty, the human analog of metamorphosis, which is also triggered by hormones."

Continue reading this article. ScienceDaily expresses the specified details of this phenomenal change that occurs in insects: facts that are far too complicated for me to express without flat-out plagiarizing.

continue

Glow and Be Eaten: Marine Bacteria Use Light to Lure Plankton and Fish

(Science Daily (Feb. 26, 2012) — "Not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes it is just bacteria trying to get ahead in life. Many sea creatures glow with a biologically produced light. This phenomenon, known as bio-luminescence, is observed, among others, in some marine bacteria which emit a steady light once they have reached a certain level of concentration (a phenomenon called "quorum sensing") on organic particles in ocean waters."

In terms of science, the fact that bacteria and other organisms produce light both in and out of the ocean has been known for quite some time already.

However, since this time, the purpose of these behaviors "remained unclear".

"Now, in an article published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have unraveled the mystery of why the marine bacteria glow. It has to do with what might be called 'the survival of the brightest.'"

The studies showed that light emitted by the bacteria attracts predators (zoo plankton) which consume them but can not digest them. The bacteria glow within the zoo plankton, causing it to glow brightly, attracting its predators (fish), which can easily spot them.

"In experiments conducted by the researchers in total darkness, they found that nocturnal fish were easily able to detect the glowing zooplankton and eat them, while, on the other hand, the fish were not attracted to zooplankton that had swallowed bacteria that had undergone genetic mutation and thus did not glow."

The light-emitting bacteria find paradise in the nutrient rich internal organs of fish. Bacteria glow because they want to be eaten (not digested), and make their would-be predator into a meal.

"In the dark, deep ocean the quantity of food is very limited, therefore it is worthwhile for the zooplankton to take the risk of becoming glowing themselves when contacting and consuming the particle with glowing bacteria, since the profit of finding rare food there is greater than the danger of exposing themselves to the relatively rare presence of predatory fish," explained Prof. Genin.

Forever Odd by Dean Koontz

"This world, which has the potential to be Eden, is instead the hell before Hell. In our arrogance, we have made it so." 

"The wives of Spartans are the secret pillars of the world."

"Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost. When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reliance on signs, however, can lead to the evasion of all moral obligations, and thus earn a terrible judgment."

-Odd Thomas as in Forever Odd

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Forever Odd was great. It was a fitting sequel to Odd Thomas, and a great reminder that we are all humans at the end of the day, regardless of our gifts or wrongdoings. 

Dean Koontz is an impressive author who knows how to weave together a touching story seamlessly, time and time again. 

This book delivers, and yet keeps us guessing.

Can't wait to read the next book.

Honestly, though, I read that book already. I picked it up in my school unaware that it was part of a bestseller series. I would've put it down, but it was too gripping. I could afford to read it again.

So, time to re-read Brother Odd!

Save the Clean Air Act

Fight Against Attacks on the Clean Air Act

More Photos from Canada

It's long awaited, but I uploaded the rest worth seeing.

Enjoy !

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

 I have a new hero in my library, and his name is Odd Thomas.

What an incredible book!

I was so immensely impressed with the story, I could not put this one down. It was a thriller, comedy, mystery, and romance with a punch of philosophy that could grab anyone. It wasn't sappy romance, it was real romance. 

It was so real that I could actually feel it. 

All praise to Koontz!

(Currently reading the sequel, Forever Odd)

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