i was so confused at first. the headline makes it sound like it just evolved or something, rather than humans just now discovering it.
The newly discovered organelle has been named the “nitroplast”. In contrast with the more ancient mitochondria and chloroplasts, the scientists have dated its evolution to around 100 million years ago.
( where i guess mitochondria evolved something like 2 billion years ago. )
still. very cool.
Relatively speaking, it did just happen, but yeah, we just found out about it as well. Again, even when we think we understand it pretty well, it’s more complicated than that. Very cool!
Scientists observed Rakus pluck and chew up leaves of a medicinal plant used by people throughout Southeast Asia to treat pain and inflammation. The adult male orangutan then used his fingers to apply the plant juices to an injury on the right cheek. Afterward, he pressed the chewed plant to cover the open wound like a makeshift bandage, according to a new study in Scientific Reports.
This should not be shocking, but is really cool. And supports the idea that these guys are far more “human” than many would like to give them credit for. As a doctor, I welcome my new simian colleagues!
Dr. “Docosc”… meet Dr. Zaius. 
Hopefully helping to shift probiotics out of the “wellness” section of the pharmacy.
The clump of brain amounted to a mere cubic millimetre of tissue, but working out the wiring still presented a huge task for the team. Electron microscope images of more than 5,000 slices of the sample revealed 57,000 individual cells, 150m neural connections and 23cm of blood vessels.
This is in 1 mm3. Out of an average human brain volume of 1.2x106 mm3. The math is… well, it’s a lot.
Also, from today’s Ars
If you puncture the ovary of a wasp called Microplitis demolitor , viruses squirt out in vast quantities, shimmering like iridescent blue toothpaste.
Ummm, yuck… But wait, there’s more!
Researchers debate whether domesticated viruses should be called viruses at all. “Some people say that it’s definitely still a virus; others say it’s integrated, and so it’s a part of the wasp,” says Marcel Dicke, an ecologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who described how domesticated viruses indirectly affect plants and other organisms in a 2020 paper in the Annual Review of Entomology.
It’s actually a really fascinating article, evolution in action.
100 years to actually trace them.
MOND bites the dust, probably anyway.
Another uncertainty is the gravity from surrounding galaxies, which has a minor effect. But the study showed that, given how Mond would have to work to fit with models for galaxy rotation, it cannot also fit the Cassini radio tracking results—no matter how we tweak the calculations.
Dark matter, whatever the hell it is, still stands.
For more about eels, I can recommend
This is old, but I’m going to post it anyway, because I brought it up in a completely unrelated thread, and I think it’s important enough to share. And it’s fascinating. Warning: it might make you start questioning the reliability of DNA testing at crime scenes. As it should.
hypothetical question…
if i’m on a jury, and a case uses dna evidence that seems to wrong to me ( or, very questionable things like handwriting analysis, ballistics matching, or cell tower positioning ) - but the defense doesn’t bring up the potential inaccuracies: are there rules that prevent me as a juror from making up my own mind?
i’ve always been dismissed from jury duty, so i’ve never heard what the rules are about that sort of thing.
