Design, Science and Technology

Goldfish have been subjected to over 1,000 y of intensive domestication and selective breeding. In this report, scientists describe a high-quality goldfish genome (2n = 100), anchoring 95.75% of contigs into 50 pseudochromosomes. Comparative genomics enabled them to disentangle the two subgenomes that resulted from an ancient hybridization event. Resequencing 185 representative goldfish variants and 16 wild crucian carp revealed the origin of goldfish and identified genomic regions that have been shaped by selective sweeps linked to its domestication.

 

This comprehensive collection of goldfish varieties enabled scientists to associate genetic variations with a number of well-known anatomical features, including features that distinguish traditional goldfish clades. Additionally, they were able to identify a tyrosine-protein kinase receptor as a candidate causal gene for the first well-known case of Mendelian inheritance in goldfish—the transparent mutant.

 

The goldfish genome and diversity data offer unique resources to make goldfish a promising model for functional genomics, as well as domestication.

Read the full article at: www.pnas.org

Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald

It sounds like the plot of the world's tiniest horror movie: deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a newly discovered species of wasp transforms a "social" spider into a zombie-like drone that abandons its colony to do the wasp's bidding. That's the gruesome, real-life discovery by University of British Columbia researchers, who detail the first example of a manipulative relationship between a new Zatypota species wasp and a social Anelosimus eximius spider in a study published recently in Ecological Entomology.

 

"Wasps manipulating the behaviour of spiders has been observed before, but not at a level as complex as this," said Philippe Fernandez-Fournier, lead author of the study and former master's student at UBC's department of zoology. "Not only is this wasp targeting a social species of spider but it's making it leave its colony, which it rarely does."

 

Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald

The answer provide clues for developing better drugs to fight pain and addiction.

 

Don’t let their appearance fool you: Thimble-sized, dappled in cheerful colors and squishy, poison frogs in fact harbor some of the most potent neurotoxins we know. With a new paper published in the journal Science, scientists are a step closer to resolving a related head-scratcher — how do these frogs keep from poisoning themselves? And the answer has potential consequences for the fight against pain and addiction.

 

The new research, led by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin, answers this question for a subgroup of poison frogs that use the toxin epibatidine. To keep predators from eating them, the frogs use the toxin, which binds to receptors in an animal’s nervous system and can cause hypertension, seizures, and even death. The researchers discovered that a small genetic mutation in the frogs — a change in just three of the 2,500 amino acids that make up the receptor — prevents the toxin from acting on the frogs’ own receptors, making them resistant to its lethal effects. Not only that, but precisely the same change appeared independently three times in the evolution of these frogs.

Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald

The moon’s light influences lion prey behavior, dung beetle navigation, fish growth, mass migrations and birdsong.

 

Crowds of people gather to watch an evening spectacle on beaches in Southern California: Twice a month, typically from March through August, the sand becomes carpeted with hundreds or thousands of California grunion. Writhing, flopping, silvery sardine look-alikes lunge as far onto shore as possible. As the female fish dig their tails into the sand and release eggs, males wrap around females and release sperm to fertilize those eggs. About 10 days later, the eggs hatch and the little grunion get washed out to sea.

 

This mating ritual is set to the tides, with hatching timed to the arrival of the peak high tide every two weeks. But the ultimate force choreographing this dance is the moon.

 

Many people know that the moon’s gravitational tug on the Earth drives the tides, and with them, the life cycles of coastal creatures. Yet the moon also influences life with its light.

Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald

Starting with normal skin cells, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have produced the first stem cells from endangered species. Such cells could eventually make it possible to improve reproduction and genetic diversity for some species, possibly saving them from extinction, or to bolster the health of endangered animals in captivity.

 

Video collection about stem cells:

http://tinyurl.com/7so5xyp

Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald