Toxoplasmosis

 

This is like a horror movie...

This is us now

 

There is something strangely reassuring about our ultimate evolutionary ancestors being "Asgard Archaea" found inside "Loki´s Castle" in the Atlantic Ocean midway between Iceland and Svalbard. 

The hypothesis is that an archaeum captured a bacterium...and this became the first eukaryotic cell. All (?) extant living creatures which aren´t Archaea or Bacteria are Eukaryota, including humans. The idea that our evolutionary ancestor was a hybrid between two different lineages (presumably combining the best traits of both) is obviously also appealing. Are you listening, Lynn Margulis? 

Note also that we are no longer bacteria "cladistically speaking", but rather archaea. Thank you. Always considered archaea to be more cool somehow!

This is us now.  

The stage of the forerunner

 

Poor Murray Bookchin. He railed against these kinds of ideas already 50 years ago, but it seems science wasn´t on the old man´s side, LOL. (Yes, this is a *very* in-house comment.) 

Another installment in the apparently never-ending saga "the bacteria created us (and all higher life) through endosymbiosis". Dependent origination, anyone? If there is grandeur in this view of life is, perhaps, another question entirely...

Oh, and since the hybrid was created in a lab under difficult condition, creationists and ancient alien true believers will have a field day with this one!

Hall of mirrors

 

 

Another thing to worry about...

Scientists are trying to create something they call "mirror life". Specifically bacteria with molecules that bend in the "wrong" direction. 

Catch: They can kill us all. 

The hall of mirrors just became the little shop of horrors. In other news, Fidel Castro´s secret love-child is about to resign as Redcoat PM...

Our autistic overlords

 

Some slightly disturbing studies suggest (but don´t definitely prove - yet) a connection between autism or social anxiety disorder and...wait for it...the bacterial biome in our guts! Not only that, bacteria may have caused or at least enhanced our evolution towards intelligence, either by somehow stimulating the intelligence itself, or by doing something to the energy metabolism of our primate ancestors which made it possible for them to develop bigger brains. 

Chapter two of the saga "we are controlled by micro-organisms"... 

Endosymbiosis

 

The philosophical/existential implications of this video are downright *staggering*. Staggering, I say! 

For a very long time, humanity assumed that we were at bottom spiritual creatures, with a soul and so forth. But according to recent research, we are actually *created by mitochondria to enhance their survival*, the mitochondria being bacterial endosymbionts which still retain a certain amount of independence after billions of years of co-evolution with their hosts. 

Since these bacteria need oxygen to survive, they have "created" bodies with lungs which can process...oxygen. Richard Dawkins once said that we are machines programmed by our genes. But if the man above is right, we are programmed by *another organism entirely*. It even controls our psychology (i.e. our most basic states of mind) and perhaps even our ageing! 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH...  

Potentially alive

 

Staggering. 

Potentially alive 830-million-year-old organisms found trapped in ancient rock

Reverse aging

 

A comb jelly
Credit: Steven G Johnson

A kind of weird experiment, would probably have been considered cruelty to animals had it not been a primitive/basal jellyfish-like organism, so the RSPCA and the ALF don´t give shit! Still, I suppose the ability to "reverse aging" is...interesting. What a pity it´s only cnidarians, comb jellies and the dog tapeworm (!) that has this unusual ability. 

This sea creature can age in reverse

The next link goes to a Wiki article about "Ming the Mollusk", a quahog clam and the oldest animal ever recorded. Or rather "the oldest individual (non-colonial) animal ever discovered whose age could be precisely determined". Yes, it was 507 years old when it was captured and killed (!) off the Icelandic coast. So this damn mollusc was older than our industrial civilization?!

Ming (clam)  

And if you absolutely want to read Wikipedia´s confusing list of the oldest organisms ever-ever-forever (many considerably more ancient than poor old Ming), you can find it here. I *think* the absolutely oldest living "things" ever were bacterial spores found in New Mexico which were revived after 250 million years. And then there´s the story about the scientist in California who sold "Amber Ale" produced with a 45 million year old revived yeast!

Somehow, I find that hard to believe. 

List of longest-living organisms

It´s insane

 

"Ridiculous, it´s not even peer reviewed yet.
But sure, if they ever ask, I could
tell them a thing or two about unknown forms of life!"

A recently published scientific paper claims that a previously unknown life form (!) may exist inside bacteria found in human bodies. Or, as the yet to be peer reviewed paper puts it: "We find that Obelisks form their own distinct phylogenetic group with no detectable sequence or structural similarity to known biological agents." 

Sure hope this goes the same way as cold fusion or the perpetual motion machine, LOL. 

The viruslike entities have been dubbed "Obelisks" by the team behind the discovery. They are less complex than viruses, but apparently more advanced than viroids. There is already some speculation about whether this could solve the riddle of virus evolution, or even the origins of life itself, the Obelisks perhaps being remnants of the hypothesized "RNA world". 

Or maybe the scientists are just seeing shit that isn´t even there.    

"It´s insane": New viruslike entities found in human gut microbes

Obelisks: Entirely new class of life has been found in the human digestive system

 

Real conspiracy?

 

Are the Why Files actually anti-establishment? Some scary facts/speculations about United States bio-weapons research, ditto terrorism, weaponized tics (!), and - above all - really bad security.

But COVID isn´t an escapee from a US-financed bio-lab in China, naaah...

Makes me wonder whether the Montauk Monster and similar mutants were just decoys to distract us from the real story! 

Welcome to the crisis

Previously posted on July 6, 2020. Reposted due to the extreme weather conditions all over the world (including Sweden) this summer. 

Erika Bjerström is a Swedish reporter and former environmentalist activist. "Klimatkrisens Sverige" is her recently published book about the climate crisis. Or rather the climate crisis in Sweden. It´s interesting comparing it to Jonathan Jeppson´s "Åtta steg mot avgrunden", reviewed by me elsewhere, another book on the climate crisis published in 2020 by a Swedish journalist. Jeppson´s book sounds apocalyptic, while Bjerström describes the climate crisis as something creeping and gradual. Ironically, this actually makes her book *more* scary than Jeppson´s. Although I don´t doubt that climate change could lead to apocalyptic consequences, the apocalypse meme as such feels old and worn out. We are being sold one every other week, it seems. But what if climate change is instead a slow decline that sneaks up on us, becoming "the new normal", until it´s suddenly too late? (Btw, I don´t believe Jeppson and Bjerström necessarily disagrees on the facts. I´m refering more to the general atmosphere of their respective books.) 

Sweden is warming twice as fast as the global average, since the country is situated very far north. The average temperature has increased with 1.7 degrees centigrade compared to preindustrial times. The climate zones in Sweden are moving north with about eleven meters per day. In the future, the mountain ranges in northern Sweden will no longer have an Alpine climate. The tree line has moved steadily upwards, with 230 meters in 100 years. The pristine Alpine landscape will be turned into an enormous forest of conifers and birches. More rain will make mosquitos and flies super-abundant. One of Sweden´s foremost tourist attractions will be turned into "a shrubby mosquito hell". In Abisko national park, the local Arctic flora and fauna is heading for a mass extinction. The average temperatures in the park have increased with two degrees since 1913. Trees now grow at places where there have been none for 7,000 years! Meanwhile, Swedish glacials have lost one third of their total area since 1916. The growing season in the Arctic has increased with four weeks in a century, according to detailed studies made in Abisko. The plants become higher, the winters milder. When the permafrost thaws, quicksilver leaks out into the food chain. This can eventually lead to detrimental consequences for both reindeer and the Native Sami population. The entire reindeer herding business might disappear, for this and other climate-related reasons. 

Climate scientists predict that the annual average temperatures in Sweden will increase with 3 to 5 degrees until the end of the century. In northern Sweden, the increase might be 10 degrees! There will on average be more rainfall, although it´s possible that some areas will become drier instead. Heat waves will increase in numbers, more people will die of the heat and various diseases which thrive in warmer climactic conditions. Due to disturbances in the jet stream, both high-pressure and low-pressure areas might "get stuck" above Sweden for longer periods than usual, leading to extreme weather. Clean water will become more scarce as groundwater supplies are diminished, lakes turn dystrophic, or becomes poisoned by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Warmer water temperatures means more virus and bacteria. Swedish towns built around lakes and rivers are flooded already today, and this too will only get worse in the future. Of course, water purification and air conditioning will still be operational - but this requires enormous amounts of energy, and might led to higher energy prices. 

Another problem are "invasive species". The author does point out that such species are invasive only from a utilitarian human viewpoint. Nature doesn´t have a "viewpoint" at all, it´s simply out there. Ticks can already be found all over Sweden. More ominous are the "monster ticks" Hyalomma marginatum and Hyalomma rufipes, which can spread dangerous tropical diseases such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. But Sweden is also invaded by regular tick species from Russia, which live by sucking blood from farm animals, often spreading disease in the process. Aphids are spreading in the new climate. The profitable Swedish forest industry could in the near future be attacked by the emerald ash borer and a moth known as black arches. They could also destroy city parks. Blueberries and lingonberries might disappear from Swedish forests, devastating another local industry. Other plant species will thrive: ferns, nettles or the Asian knotweed, which grows everywhere and slowly kills all other vegetation. 

Swedish agriculture was for a long time in denial about the consequences of global warming. It was rather seen as an excellent opportunity to introduce soy, quinoa and edible maize, three cash crops not grown in Sweden at present. Today, such dreams have been replaced by cold (or rather hot) realities. Climate change will lead to bad harvests. The production of dairy products, meat and beer will also be negatively impacted. Consumer prices will rise. Sweden has a self-sufficiency rate of only 45%, having an extremely globalized economy dependent on international supply chains (including food). A more ironic effect of climate change will be that the most privileged people in Sweden will be hit first by rising sea levels (in the so-called Third World, it´s usually the poorest that are impacted first). The luxury houses at Falsterbo in southern Sweden might be literally flooded at some point in the future, destroying property valued at a total of 70 billion kronor! 

While Bjerström´s book is about local conditions in Sweden, it´s obviously impossible to avoid the global big picture. At some point, the area around the Mediterranean Sea will become literally impossible to inhabit, due to average temperatures around 40 degrees centigrade. And even before that, agriculture will become almost impossible. Millions of people from southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East will move northwards, where the climate - despite everything I just said above - will still be tolerable compared to Mediterranean standards. They will be followed by even larger migrations from the tropics, which will also become uninhabitable. What will happen to Swedish democracy and hospitality when tens of millions of refugees want to get inside, perhaps desperately? One of the scientists interviewed by the author suggests that 50 million people might live in Sweden without any problems! (Today, Sweden has a population of 9 million.) Clearly a pro-immigration fanatic, since 50 million people *obviously* isn´t sustainable given all other facts mentioned in the book (and here above in the blog post). As a good liberal, Bjerström never calls for closed borders, but it´s difficult to see how this can be avoided already at much lower levels than 50 million. The book ends with some comic relief: an interview with an official optimist named Svante Axelsson who believes that of course we can solve all problems, blah blah.

My main take away from "Klimatkrisens Sverige" is that Nature will always find a way, even in the Anthropocene. The real challenge is for modern civilization, or at the very least the human species, to survive the coming storms. As long as the changes are as gradual as described in this volume, it´s still within the realm of the possible to adapt to them. Which doesn´t mean it will be easy! It requires a degree of national solidarity and resolve not seen in this country for a very long time. The problem, of course, is that Sweden ultimately cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world, or the rest of the atmosphere. Indeed, our little country might become a *very* valuable piece of real estate when the tropics and sub-tropics are emptied of human inhabitants, most of them moving north. Another problem is of course that the collapse will come even faster if we really would stop using fossil fuels tomorrow morning, suggesting that it won´t be done. The very same fossil fuels that "fuel" climate change in the first place... 

Perhaps the differences between Erika Bjerström and Jonathan Jeppson aren´t that large, after all. 

Planet Antarctica

 

When I watched BBC´s "Frozen Planet II", I assumed the stromatolites shown at the end of episode 4 were computer animated rather than real. However, it seems the film crew *did* dive in Lake Untersee, a lake in Antarctica with a permanent ice cover that may have persisted for 100,000 years. 

And under the ice they filmed the previously mentioned stromatolites, bizarre structures created by myriads of cyanobacteria (the organisms previously known as blue-green algae). Perhaps inevitably, scientists find these extremophiles very interesting...since they may suggest that life is possible at Mars or Europa! Go figure.

But sure, I also go quasi-religious when I watch stuff like this, although in my case BBC´s descent into this Hadean world (did you know there are literal *deserts* in Antarctica complete with sand dunes?) rather invoke feelings of the utterly ineffable grandeur of Shiva the Destroyer...  

The first great plague

 

A scary YouTube clip arguing that the “Neolithic decline” was caused by none other than our good ol´ friend Yersinia pestis. After killing off a large portion of the farming population of Old Europe, the continent became easy pray for the Indo-European invaders.

Not sure if I buy this. The genetic evidence suggests a mass die off of *male* lineages, while female lineages survived and “intermarried” with the Indo-European conquerors. Is there any other plague pandemic in world history during which men are extremely disproportionately affected?

That being said, the pesky bacterium have apparently been found at Neolithic sites…

If it looks like an eukaryote, it probably is a prokaryote

 

An eukaryote (cladistically speaking)

A very bizarre bacterium have been found in the French Caribbean, and its somewhat extended Caribbean cruise has turned into a scientific mystery. 

Not only is the bacterium enormous (at least for a bacterium), it also looks more like a eukaryote than a proper prokaryote. 

If you get my drift! 

Record bacterium discovered

Glad Midsommar...typ

Credit: Jean-Marie Volland/BBC News

Glad Midsommar! 

Jättebakterie upptäckt- syns med blotta ögat

Bring back Boomer science

 

Brontosaurus have been rehabilitated. 

Now, let´s bring back Pluto into planetary orbit, prove that cyanobacteria are really plants, and stop calling birds freakin´ dinosaurs (cuz they aint). And why not resuscitate Fred Hoyle´s steady-state theory of the universe, when we´re already at it? *And* admit that Neandertals were really Homo sapiens! 

Can we make this happen, fam?

Hell´s Bells

"Mysterious Planet: Giants of the Carribean" is a spectacular but also somewhat confusing documentary about...essentially everything at the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and its oceanic vicinity. Ostensibly, though, it´s about whale sharks! And yes, the sharks are in there somewhere. 

The narrator moves back and forth between the jungle, the water-filled underground caves, and the open sea, just as freely as he crosses millions of years of deep time. It´s not always clear whether what we see is real footage, or the special effects department working overtime. But yes, "Giants of the Carribean" *is* fascinating. 

As late as two years ago, marine biologists were stunned to discover a huge annual gathering of whale sharks off the Yucatan coast, in an area seemingly devoid of plankton (their staple food). What on earth were they doing there? Apparently, there *is* a lot of plankton in the area, after all, specifically the roe of bonito tunafish. Meanwhile, other scientists are exploring the underground "rivers" in the Yucatan jungles, which may even have inspired ancient Mayan mythology about a dangerous subterranean realm of demons and spirits. The flooded caves turn out to have a connection to the Caribbean Sea! Fortunately or otherwise, the only "monsters" in the caves are peculiar shrimps, fishes and (above water level) bats and snakes. There are also mysterious bacterial formations nicknamed "Hell´s Bells". Apparently, the bacteria need neither sun light nor oxygen to propagate. (Life on Mars discovered?) 

The sink holes (known as cenotes) in the ex-Mayan jungle turn out to be the last remnants of the large crater that killed the dinosaurs (and a lot of other creatures) at the end of the Cretaceous. One of the organisms killed off in this spectacular Velikovskian manner was a fish even larger than the whale shark. At the time, the ancestors of the whale sharks were small fish living at the bottom of the ocean. And so it goes, around and around, in this crazy world (perhaps ruled by some demonic entity appeased by the Maya, but that´s literally another show!). 

Hell´s Bells indeed. 

Is there life on Earth?

I'm sure this is completely normal...

Although I'm not a science geek (no, really), I admit a certain fascination with this kind of stuff, perhaps because I un-scientifically assume that this somehow proves that *everything* is ALIVE. 

Nanobes: Alien life forms from Mars?!

Monster of the Week (4): Multi-cellular bacteria?

Not sure what "official" science says about this new theory, but I tend to believe everything which suggests that complexity has always existed.

Cuz reasons or something. 

Early life forms resemble animal life

The Ancient Ones

I admit that I find this *very* difficult to believe. Has this result been independently verified by some other team of scientists? If it turns out to be true, well, I suppose that simply confirms the two sayings "Life will find a way" and "Cthulhu for President". 

These ancient seafloor microbes woke up after over 100 million years