Slime Molds

Here is a truly cool bunch of little guys:

Reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything today, he mentioned slime molds. I couldn’t resist looking them up. Here is an organism that spends part of its time as a bunch of single celled stuff but when the going gets tough it reforms as a kind of plant-like slug (through chemical messaging) and becomes a single entity that like a shroom produce spores and carries on from there. That’s right out of the Terminator. It reminds me of how butterflies are formed in the cocoon. The caterpillar essentially turns into DNA soup before reforming as the butterfly. What benefit does it get from that?

Ask urodacus.

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?[/quote]
Bingo Nemesis.

The caterpillar to butterfly transition is not wuite as dramatic as the slime mould…

Slime moulds are cool.

So are luminescent fungi, also found in rainforests.

And frogs.

Frogs R cool

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?[/quote]

Did you know if you ask an evolutionary biologist why we have of sex, he cannot really tell you? But, if you ask any 15 year old anywhere in the world why we have sex he cannot stop telling you.

[quote=“urodacus”]The caterpillar to butterfly transition is not wuite as dramatic as the slime mould…

Slime moulds are cool.

So are luminescent fungi, also found in rainforests.

And frogs.

Frogs R cool[/quote]
I keep frogs as pets, so I agree they are cool. I finished feeding them fish just a few minutes ago.

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?[/quote]

Did you know if you ask an evolutionary biologist why we have of sex, he cannot really tell you? But, if you ask any 15 year old anywhere in the world why we have sex he cannot stop telling you.[/quote]
of course and evolutionary biologist can tell you that. But anyways good joke :thumbsup:

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?[/quote]

Did you know if you ask an evolutionary biologist why we have of sex, he cannot really tell you? But, if you ask any 15 year old anywhere in the world why we have sex he cannot stop telling you.[/quote]
of course and evolutionary biologist can tell you that. But anyways good joke :thumbsup:[/quote]

Actually it is one area that evolutionary biologists are not really that certain about from what I understand. They cannot explain why it is necessary to only pass on half your genes to the next generation and not all of them. They have postulates as to why but no firm theory. For example the longest surviving life on the planet reproduces asexually so in that sense asexual reproduction is very successful, but that is for single celled organisms mostly, except in the case of plants and fungi. The reason they think we have sexual reproduction is to combat asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction happens in multi-cellular organisms and once you have any size about you then bacteria will want to come and live on and off you and they can reproduce rapidly given their asexual reproduction. The only way to survive that was to have the genetic diversity sexual reproduction offers. Genetic diversity gives you the ability to combat bacteria and viruses. So it is a battle not between the sexes but between sex and no-sex (which does sound like the battle between the sexes now that I’m saying it out aloud).

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?[/quote]

Did you know if you ask an evolutionary biologist why we have of sex, he cannot really tell you? But, if you ask any 15 year old anywhere in the world why we have sex he cannot stop telling you.[/quote]
of course and evolutionary biologist can tell you that. But anyways good joke :thumbsup:[/quote]

Actually it is one area that evolutionary biologists are not really that certain about from what I understand. They cannot explain why it is necessary to only pass on half your genes to the next generation and not all of them. They have postulates as to why but no firm theory. For example the longest surviving life on the planet reproduces asexually so in that sense asexual reproduction is very successful, but that is for single celled organisms mostly, except in the case of plants and fungi. The reason they think we have sexual reproduction is to combat asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction happens in multi-cellular organisms and once you have any size about you then bacteria will want to come and live on and off you and they can reproduce rapidly given their asexual reproduction. The only way to survive that was to have the genetic diversity sexual reproduction offers. Genetic diversity gives you the ability to combat bacteria and viruses. So it is a battle not between the sexes but between sex and no-sex (which does sound like the battle between the sexes now that I’m saying it out aloud).[/quote]
Thanks for the biology lesson.

I read it in a Richard Dawkins’ book.

Ask urodacus.[/quote]

Ummm… it ends up as a butterfly. And it can have sex! (Caterpillars can’t.) Surely that’s a convincing argument. Would you rather be an earthbound eunuch multilegged troll or a sexable goodlooking thing that can fly?[/quote]

Did you know if you ask an evolutionary biologist why we have of sex, he cannot really tell you? But, if you ask any 15 year old anywhere in the world why we have sex he cannot stop telling you.[/quote]
of course and evolutionary biologist can tell you that. But anyways good joke :thumbsup:[/quote]

Actually it is one area that evolutionary biologists are not really that certain about from what I understand. They cannot explain why it is necessary to only pass on half your genes to the next generation and not all of them. They have postulates as to why but no firm theory. For example the longest surviving life on the planet reproduces asexually so in that sense asexual reproduction is very successful, but that is for single celled organisms mostly, except in the case of plants and fungi. The reason they think we have sexual reproduction is to combat asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction happens in multi-cellular organisms and once you have any size about you then bacteria will want to come and live on and off you and they can reproduce rapidly given their asexual reproduction. The only way to survive that was to have the genetic diversity sexual reproduction offers. Genetic diversity gives you the ability to combat bacteria and viruses. So it is a battle not between the sexes but between sex and no-sex (which does sound like the battle between the sexes now that I’m saying it out aloud).[/quote]

Quite. If passing your genes on is the measure of all things, there’s no inherent evolutionary advantage to complexity, as you say.

The Doctor can do this neat little rewriting DNA trick too to escape death too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXCpY_3Sac8