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ScienceAlert

Lost Age of Monotremes Revealed by Fossils From 100 Million Years Ago

As bones encased in rock rotted away, water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for

As bones encased in rock rotted away, water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for 100 million years. The resulting fossils now provide evidence that there really may have been an Age of Monotremes, before other mammals came to dominate. "It's like discovering a whole new civilization," says Australian Museum paleontologist Tim Flannery. "Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes." Only five of these rare mammals still cling to existence: one platypus and four echidna species, shared between Australia and Papua New Guinea. But due to their reptilian-like egg-laying feature, it has long been thought these animals evolved before placental mammals like us and marsupials.

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Elysia chlorotica, also called the “Eastern Emerald Elysia” is a bright green sacoglossa found along the Atlantic coast of North America that's earned the title of “solar-powered sea slug” for its ability to produce its own energy with sunlight and the chloroplasts that it sucks off of algae.

This unusual process, which is similar to photosynthesis, is known as kleptoplasty. Except for a select number of creatures like the adorable “leaf sheep” Costasiella kuroshimae nudibranch, very few non-plant organisms are capable of the phenomenon.

I met some relatives of my beloved leatherleaf slugs in the mangroves of Singapore, the onch slugs! they’re perhaps some of the slowest-moving animals I’ve ever encountered; this is one in a hurry:

the species pictured is a Platevindex, which are particularly interesting to me since their backs are studded with extra eyes! the dorsal papillae each have a little black dot that’s a photoreceptor, which helps the slug detect changes in light exposure.

onchidiids are marine animals, living on costal rocks and in mangroves, but breathe air and spend much of their time out of the water. like the leatherleafs, they’ve got a dry, tough hide that maintains water balance, but Platevindex takes that to an extreme—when I picked one up, it felt like a vulcanized rubber tire!

I love this idea.

Can you render the lyrics of Never Gonna Give You Up?

i’ve gotten this request several times now, so for anyone who asked for this after uniquepickles you can just look at this post.

enjoy!:

letter sequence in this ask matching protein-coding amino acids:

WerenstrangerstlveYknwtherlesandsdIdIAfllcmmitmentswhatImthinkingfYwldntgetthisfrmanythergyIstwannatellyhwImfeelingGttamakeynderstandNevergnnagiveypNevergnnaletydwnNevergnnarnarndanddesertyNevergnnamakeycryNevergnnasaygdyeNevergnnatellalieandhrtyWeveknwneachtherfrslngYrheartseenachingtyretshytsayitsayitInsidewethknwwhatseengingngingnWeknwthegameandweregnnaplayitAndifyaskmehwImfeelingDnttellmeyretlindtseeNevergnnagiveypNevergnnaletydwnNevergnnarnarndanddesertyNevergnnamakeycryNevergnnasaygdyeNevergnnatellalieandhrtyNevergnnagiveypNevergnnaletydwnNevergnnarnarndanddesertyNevergnnamakeycryNevergnnasaygdyeNevergnnatellalieandhrtyWeveknwneachtherfrslngYrheartseenachingtyretshytsayitsayitInsidewethknwwhatseengingngingnWeknwthegameandweregnnaplayitIstwannatellyhwImfeelingGttamakeynderstandNevergnnagiveypNevergnnaletydwnNevergnnarnarndanddesertyNevergnnamakeycryNevergnnasaygdyeNevergnnatellalieandhrtyNevergnnagiveypNevergnnaletydwnNevergnnarnarndanddesertyNevergnnamakeycryNevergnnasaygdyeNevergnnatellalieandhrtyNevergnnagiveypNevergnnaletydwnNevergnnarnarndanddesertyNevergnnamakeycryNevergnnasaygdyeNevergnnatellalieandhrty

protein guy analysis:

i was really interested to see how this one would turn out, as it is made up almost entirely of repeated domains (the chorus). unfortunately, as many of you may be quick to point out, the chorus of Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' is not in fact a protein domain, and the only thing repeated are some terrible looking loops. i've even included a second picture to properly show you how flat this terrible protein is.

i thought i understood Levinthal's paradox before starting this blog, but these structures are giving me a newfound appreciation. for those who are unaware, Levinthal's paradox is based on the fact that any given protein can fold into an enormous number of possible conformations, but cannot test all of these within the seconds or less that it takes for a protein to fold into its stable tertiary structure. correct folding is controlled by the primary structure (or, the sequence of amino acids encoding the protein) as well as complex factors including the presence of any chaperones to assist with folding, and the relative abundance of the tRNAs matching specific codons for each amino acid. running this blog makes me think of all the ways this process can fail along the way, and all of the almost correct places a protein can get stuck. this one certainly looks like it failed, but even then its hard to believe this is the shape that stuck.

for those interested, the one beta sheet goes with the line 'you wouldn't get this from any other guy', which does only occur once in the song.

predicted protein structure:

Digenean parasites of frog from Erzurum (a: Diplodiscus subclavatus, b: Dolichosaccus rastellus, c: Gorgoderina vitelliloba, d: Opisthioglyphe ranae, e: Cephalogonimus retusus, f: Gorgodera cygnoides, g: Skrjabinoeces breviansa, h: Haplometra cylindracea, i: Haematoloechus variegatus, j: Skrjabinoeces similis). (Tepe, Yahya & Yilan, Yağmur. (2021). New Records of Trematode and Acanthocephalan Species in Frogs in Erzurum Province, Turkey. Helminthologia. 58. 372-384. 10.2478/helm-2021-0043.)

DRAG CRAB DRAG CRAB DRAG CRAB

look at the shape range of crabs. yeti crab vs atlantic mole crab vs japanese spider crab

i am in awe!!!!

I mean, I’m compelled to share for the image alone

but if you’d like to read the full article: X