Eukaryon with your research
Bravo. +1 for the subtitle writer.
Weird ARCHAEAN LIFE FORM found at 'Loki's Castle' DEEP beneath Arctic Circle
A team of Swedish bioboffins has, on Wednesday, presented its discovery of a new microbe which represents a missing link in the evolution of complex life. The research provides more information about the development of Eukaryotic cells, the complicated unit that allows larger biomasses (such as ameobas, plants and human bodies) …
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Thursday 7th May 2015 15:52 GMT Spoobistle
Re: Oh Hell
> "...which we refer to as microbial dark matter,..."
> Now even the biologists are doing it...
There is a vague similarity - they haven't actually discovered a wee crawly beastie, what they did was to scrape up lots of little bits of DNA and stitch them together (virtually) to read the genome of the beastie. Like the physicists, they know it must be there, but can't actually see it. Unlike the physicists, there is a sporting chance some intrepid diver will eventually find it on the bottom of his boot.
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Thursday 7th May 2015 17:07 GMT DNTP
bottom of the boot
If any human can dive to 2300 meters in something that has "boots", it's going to be one of those giant rounded hardshell suits, and I think those are only made for a third of that depth at best.
The technique you're describing is known as an environmental DNA census, and is starting to gain wider adoption in ecology, environmental science, and related fields, tracking the widespread rollout of Next-Gen sequencing instruments that allow the reliable and (relatively!) inexpensive detection of low-concentration, highly fragmented genetic material. For those who are interested, a fairly readable open paper describing a pilot study may be found here:
Kelly et al 2014. Using environmental dna to census marine fishes in a large mesocosm. PLOS ONE 9(1): e86175
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
