# gst: how a virus could cause context-dependent manipulation in host social behavior

<< Honey bees that guard hive entrances are twice as likely to allow in trespassers from other hives if the intruders are infected with the Israeli acute paralysis virus, a deadly pathogen of bees, >>

<< It seems that the virus is changing how the bees smell, and perhaps the infected bees also are behaving in a way that is meant to appease the guards by engaging more in trophallaxis (a process by which honey bees exchange regurgitated food and other liquids), >> Adam Dolezal

Diana Yates. Virus-infected honey bees more likely to gain entrance to healthy hives. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. April 27, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-virus-infected-honey-bees-gain-entrance.html

Amy C. Geffre, Tim Gernat, et al. Honey bee virus causes context-dependent changes in host social behavior. PNAS  doi: 10.1073/pnas.2002268117. Apr 27, 2020.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/21/2002268117

keyword 'trophallaxis' in Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Trophallaxis

# gst: measuring biological noise of gene expression

<< Essential genes are often expressed with high variability during the development of cells. Scientists call this phenomenon "biological noise" and suspect that it is also decisive for the fate of cells, i.e. the developmental pathway a cell takes. Max Planck researcher Dominic Grun now presents a method based on single-cell data to quantify this variability in gene expression.  >>

Dominic Grun << hopes to gain a better understanding of the extent to which noise regulates development or is even necessary for the differentiation of cells. >>

How gene expression noise shapes cell fate. Max Planck Society. Nov 18, 2019. 

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-11-gene-noise-cell-fate.html   

Grun D. Revealing dynamics of gene expression variability in cell state space. Nat Methods (2019) doi:10.1038/s41592-019-0632-3. Nov 18, 2019.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-019-0632-3

Also

keyword 'noise' in Notes:

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=noise

keyword 'noise' in FonT:

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=noise

# evol: apropos of our origin, the KhoeSan trunk of the human tree

<< Where was the evolutionary birthplace of modern humans? The East African Great Rift Valley has long been the favoured contender – until today. (AA) new research has used DNA to trace humanity’s earliest footsteps to a prehistoric wetland called Makgadikgadi-Okavango, south of the Great Zambezi River. >>

<< KhoeSan have the most diverse mitogenomes of anyone on Earth, which suggests their DNA most closely resembles that of our shared common ancestors. If we all sit on branches of the human family tree, then KhoeSan are the tree's trunk. >>

Vanessa Hayes. Humanity’s birthplace: why everyone alive today can call northern Botswana home. University of Sydney. Oct 28, 2019.

https://theconversation.com/humanitys-birthplace-why-everyone-alive-today-can-call-northern-botswana-home-125814

Eva K. F. Chan, Axel Timmermann, et al.  Human origins in a southern African palaeo-wetland and first migrations. Nature (2019) doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1714-1. Oct 28, 2019.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1714-1    

# gst: a cylindrical solitonlike that collapses into a spherical shape, and, along the filaments, central cores of matter exhibit fuzzies

In AA simulation, << the dark matter filaments show coherent interference patterns on the boson de Broglie scale and develop cylindrical solitonlike cores, which are unstable under gravity and collapse into kiloparsec-scale spherical solitons. Features of the dark matter distribution are largely unaffected by the baryonic feedback. On the contrary, the distributions of gas and stars, which do form along the entire filament, exhibit central cores imprinted by dark matter-a smoking gun signature of FDM ("fuzzy" dark matter). >>

Philip Mocz, Anastasia Fialkov, et al. First Star-Forming Structures in Fuzzy Cosmic Filaments. Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 141301. Oct 2, 2019.     https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.141301  

Jennifer Chu. This is how a 'fuzzy' universe may have looked. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oct 3, 2019       https://m.phys.org/news/2019-10-fuzzy-dark-disrupts-conventional.html   

FonT

intrigante qui come una simulazione di evoluzione cosmologica - filamenti strutturati a cilindro mutanti (collassanti) in strutture sferoidali (ma non a generica fluttuante frittella) formanti, nei filamenti di gas,  serie (sciami?) di kernel a dinamiche fuzzy - possa far immaginare generici contesti altri ...

# evol: echolocation, a prime example of convergent evolution

<< Echolocation is a prime example of convergent evolution, the independent gain of similar features in species of different lineages. >>

<< Distantly related species entering similar biological niches often adapt by evolving similar morphological and physiological characters. How much genomic molecular convergence (particularly of highly constrained coding sequence) contributes to convergent phenotypic evolution, such as echolocation in bats and whales, is a long-standing fundamental question.  >>

AA << find that the gene set most overrepresented (q-value = 2.2e-3) with convergent substitutions in echolocators, affecting 18 genes, regulates development of the cochlear ganglion, a structure with empirically supported relevance to echolocation. >>

Amir Marcovitz, Yatish Turakhia, et al. A functional enrichment test for molecular convergent evolution finds a clear protein-coding signal in echolocating bats and whales.
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1818532116   Sep 30, 2019    https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/27/1818532116 

Krista Conger. Scientists uncover genetic similarities among species that use sound to navigate. Stanford University Medical Center. Oct 4, 2019.   https://m.phys.org/news/2019-10-scientists-uncover-genetic-similarities-species.html

# evol: when the dinosaurs died, lichens thrived ...

AA << results imply that multiple historical events during the transition from Mesozoic to Cenozoic eras, including the K-Pg mass extinction event, impacted the evolutionary dynamics in lichen-forming fungi. >>

Jen-Pan Huang, Ekaphan Kraichak, et al.   Accelerated diversifications in three diverse families of morphologically complex lichen-forming fungi link to major historical events. Scientific Reports.  volume 9, Article number: 8518 (2019).   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44881-1  

<< We thought that lichens would be affected negatively, but in the three groups we looked at, they seized the chance and diversified rapidly, (..) Some lichens grow sophisticated 3D structures like plant leaves, and these ones filled the niches of plants that died out. >> Jen-Pang Huang.

When the dinosaurs died, lichens thrived. Mass extinction hurt land plants, but DNA shows that some fungus/plant combo organisms rose up. Field Museum, Academia Sinica, Taipei.  - ScienceDaily. Jun 28, 2019.   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190628120432.htm

K-Pg mass extinction event   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event