#archaea

[marinebiologyshitposts]

#original coast #taxonomy #domain #archaea #bacteria #eukarya #poll

[reasonsforhope]

This is maybe an odd thing to put on a good news/reasons for hope blog, but I've also had people tell me that they find this info really, genuinely comforting, so I'm putting it up. Also, further understanding could do a ton to advance medicine, esp. re: allergies, autoimmune diseases, and depression. You can read more about this at the link.

"More than half of your body is not human, say scientists.

Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are microscopic [co-contributors].

Understanding this hidden half of ourselves - our microbiome - is rapidly transforming understanding of diseases from allergy to Parkinson's.

The field is even asking questions of what it means to be "human" and is leading to new innovative treatments as a result.

"They are essential to your health," says Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute, "your body isn't just you."

No matter how well you wash, nearly every nook and cranny of your body is covered in microscopic creatures.

This includes bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria). The greatest concentration of this microscopic life is in the dark murky depths of our oxygen-deprived bowels.

Prof Rob Knight, from University of California San Diego, told the BBC: "You're more microbe than you are human."

Originally it was thought our cells were outnumbered 10 to one.

"That's been refined much closer to one-to-one, so the current estimate is you're about 43% human if you're counting up all the cells," he says.

But genetically we're even more outgunned.

The human genome - the full set of genetic instructions for a human being - is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes.

But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.

Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: "We don't have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own.

"What makes us human is, in my opinion, the combination of our own DNA, plus the DNA of our gut microbes."

It would be naive to think we carry around so much microbial material without it interacting or having any effect on our bodies at all.

Science is rapidly uncovering the role the microbiome plays in digestion, regulating the immune system, protecting against disease and manufacturing vital vitamins.

Prof Knight said: "We're finding ways that these tiny creatures totally transform our health in ways we never imagined until recently."

It is a new way of thinking about the microbial world. To date, our relationship with microbes has largely been one of warfare.

-via BBC News, April 10, 2018

#cw germaphobia #germaphobia #bacteria #viruses #fungi #archaea #dna #genome #genetics #biology #human biology #public health #biodiversity #technically it is biodiversity! #increasingly we learn that your own body needs to be biodiverse to even form properly #some of the studies we have on this are literally kinda mindblowing #also microbiotics is the next huge frontier in treating depression and anxiety #(well they're tied for the next huge frontier with psychedelics probably) #good news #arguably lol #hope

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

ID: a “tree of life” diagram showing bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota as well as their “roots”(which actually look like roots, and the times genes were transferred between different groups (including plastids and mitochondria)

End ID

show the birds aren’t dinos people this diagram i think they’ll explode

Oh horizontal gene transfer

#LUCA #early life #horizontal gene transfer #eukaryotes are archaeans #bacteria #archaea #eukaryotes

[parakaryote]

The Weird Microorganism Iceberg

I basically made this on an impulse, please don’t take it too seriously. Feel free to suggest more organisms!

Explanations under the cut.

Tardigrades: You probably all know this one. Commonly said to be polyextremophiles, but this isn’t actually true; while they can survive extreme conditions, they don’t thrive in them. Something you might not know about them is that all of their body segment genes are equivalent to arthropod head genes — meaning they are basically walking heads.

Demodex: Eyelash mites.

Diatoms: Geometric silicon shell creatures.

Nylon-eating bacteria (Paenarthrobacter ureafaciens KI72): Exactly what it says on the tin.

Myxozoa: Single-celled parasitic cnidarians. Lack digestive systems, circulatory systems, gonads, and even muscles in some species. Also may or may not be autonomous cancer cells.

Thiomargarita: The only macroscopic bacteria. Honorary microorganisms for the purposes of this image.

Wolbachia: Parasitic / mutualistic bacteria genus that has created numerous insect species through their effects on reproduction. (Infected females can become capable of parthenogenesis, while infected males are either killed, turned into females, or limited to reproducing only with females infected by the same strain.)

Deinococcus radiodurans: A bacterium which unofficially holds the title of “most extreme extremophile”. Can survive incredibly high doses of radiation, as well as high acidity and very low temperatures.

Dicyemida: Symbiotic (once mistakenly thought to be parasitic) animals that live in cephalopod kidneys. Have alternation of generations and used to be known as “Rhombozoa” (“rhombus animals”).

Facetotectans: Parasitic crustaceans with an unknown adult form. Attempts to artificially induce metamorphosis only produce another juvenile stage, as far as anyone can tell.

Metal-breathing bacteria: Bacteria which use nanowires to accept electrons from metals.

Limnognathia: One of the smallest animals, and has 15-part extensible jaws.

Disulforudis audaxviator: The only known organism to comprise a single-species ecosystem. Lives over a mile underground and feeds off the byproducts of radioactive decay.

Salinella salve: Possibly nonexistent simple animal, allegedly cultured by Johannes Frenzel in 1892 but never found by anyone else.

Warnowiids (Warnowiaceae): A family of dinoflagellates which have modified some of their organelles into an eye… which somehow works well enough for them to aim their stingers at prey, despite them having no brain (or even other cells) to process the images.

Haloquadratum walsbyi: A square that lives in salt.

Dicopomorpha echmepterygis: The smallest known insect, a parasitoid wasp smaller than a Paramecium.

Hemimastigophora: A group of organisms recently discovered to be an early-splitting branch of the eukaryotes.

Monocercomonoides: A genus of “excavate” “protists” (both terms are polyphyletic, lol) that lack mitochondria… or even the genes for them.

Parakaryon myojinensis: The only complete incertae sedis, for which not even the domain is known. Has an odd mix of eukaryote and prokaryote-like features, leading to speculation that they represent a second incidence of endosymbiosis (aka Eukaryota 2.0). Also my blog’s namesake.

Collodictyon: Considered unclassifiable for a long time. Not really that weird in and of itself, tbh.

Kamera lens: Continuing the theme, this is an alga that has proven weirdly difficult to classify despite having been known for centuries (though it’s been narrowed down to the Ochrophyta). Its funny name makes it a pain to look up.

Jeongeupia sacculi: Recently-discovered multicellular(!) bacterium. Unlike everything else on here, it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page (yet).

Meteora sporadica: “Protist” which moves by rowing with a pair of arm-like appendages. Another difficult-to-classify organism, although a study from earlier this year suggests they are related to the Hemimastigophora.

Kakabekia barghoorniana: Apparent Paleoproterozoic living fossil that looks like an umbrella.

Magosphaera planula: A sphere which splits apart into amoeba-like cells, observed by Ernst Haeckel in 1869. Also possibly nonexistent / misidentified.

#biology #microbiology #zoology #bacteriology #protist #archaea #parasite mention #cancer mention

[mugene-art]

Walsby's Square Archaeon (2023)

inspired by Haloquadratum walsbyi. made with Procreate

#archaea #extremophile #microbiology #biology #art #comic #cartoon #digital art #mu's art

[naturalkings]

Archaea color ref

#parleboo #my art #parleboo art #oc art #nks #the natural kings stories #archaea #old art #concept art

[adoraborous]

maybe a weird question but

#science #biology #archaea #taxonomy #cladistics

[whymustyouhurtmeinthisway]

Choose your favourite! It can be for any reason at all, no restrictions apply.

Also for clarification, I know Protista technically isn’t used as a kingdom anymore, but I’m using it here just for the sake of brevity to represent the supergroups formerly found under it, essentially any eukaryote that’s not a plant, animal, or fungus. (The singular parakaryotic cell that’s ever been found also goes under protista for the purpose of this poll if there are any big Parakaryon Myojinensis fans out there)

Also for those unfamiliar and/or curious, the reason viruses are listed separately from everything else is because they’re fuckin weird. They’re so far separated from every other lifeform that it’s been a pretty big debate whether or not they can even be considered alive at all. Most biologists say no. I’ve chosen to include them because why not.

#biology #animals #plants #fungi #mushrooms #bacteria #protists #archaea #viruses #me #poll

[prala]

The three domains of life

Both Bacteria and Archaea are considered prokaryotes, and they represent two of the three domains of life, with the third domain being Eukarya, which includes all complex organisms, including humans, animals, plants, and fungi.

The relationship between Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya is a complex and evolving field of study. It’s still a matter of scientific investigation and discussion as to which of these two prokaryotic domains, Bacteria or Archaea, might be more closely related to the common ancestor of all life on Earth.

Some researchers have proposed that Archaea may have closer evolutionary ties to the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), the hypothetical single-celled organism from which all life on Earth is descended. However, this is not yet definitively established, and ongoing research is providing new insights into the evolutionary history of life.

#the three domains of life #l.u.c.a. #archaea #bacteria #eukarya #sciblr

[carbohs-region]

Extremobacter, the Thermophile Pokémon!

Type: Fire/Poison

In the earliest days of Earth, Extremobacter’s ancestors lived in extremely hot and inhospitable environments. Despite places like this beginning to give way to more temperate and safe habitats, Extremobacter is still able to call acid pools and hydrothermal vents its home.

#pokemon #fakemon #carbohs #natural history #paleontology #paleoblr #paleoart #evolution #thermophiles #archaea #bacteria #prokaryotes #chemosythesis #hydrothermal vents #halobacteria

[bpod-bpod]

Diving for Pills

Celebrated by a recent exhibition at its new building in White City, London, the MRC LMS has launched a book and website with over 100 interpretations of the phrase ‘A Picture of Health’ gathered from a broad cross-section of society.

As his Picture of Health, Dr Tobias Warnecke, head of the MRC LMS Molecular Systems group, chose this image of bacteria-like organisms called archaea growing in a Petri dish. Read why:

"We work on archaea – tiny single-celled organisms not unlike bacteria but with a molecular toolkit that, in many respects, is more similar to that of humans. Some of these archaea flourish in odd places. The bright pink Haloferax volcanii colonies in this picture, for example, were originally isolated from the Dead Sea. They love extremely salty environments where few other organisms survive. Other archaea thrive closer to home: in the human gut. Here, they have carved out a living for themselves amongst legions of bacteria. We study how these archaea defend themselves against bacterial competitors, looking for new types of antibacterial molecules that can be used to combat antimicrobial resistance. This is my picture of health as it reminds me that solutions to health challenges, now and in the future, can come from the strangest of places."

Read more about Evolving Visions of Health - a special collection from A Picture of Health here

Image by Tobias Warnecke

Molecular Systems group, MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, London, UK

Image copyright held by Tobias Warnecke

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

#science #biomedicine #archaea #bacteria #antibiotic resistance #petri dish #picture of health

[lokiinmediasideblog]

Your icon, very clever jeje

What can I say? So @andy-skull got it. Pick your Loki. It was Lokiarchaeota first discovered in the hydrothermal vents known as "Loki's Castle" in 2015.

#lokiarchaeota #loki's castle #loki #norse mythology #biology #archaea

[pinkblink]

#prehistoric memes #prehistoric #archeology #archaea #paleontology #paleoblr #paleomemes

[er-cryptid]

Archaea

-- unicellular

-- prokaryotic

-- cell walls are chemically different from bacteria

-- known for surviving in extreme environments      -- deep sea vents      -- hot geysers      -- Antarctic waters

-- all archaea are classified in the kingdom Archaea

#medblr #studyblr #notes #biology #bio #archaea #kingdoms #domains #prokaryotes

[netmassimo]

An article published in the journal "Nature" reports a study on archaea that belong to the proposed superphylum called Asgard and in particular on their characteristics that make them a possible evolutionary missing link with eukaryotes. A team of researchers formed by the collaboration of the working groups of Christa Schleper of the Austrian University of Vienna and Martin Pilhofer of ETH Zurich was successful in cultivating a species belonging to this group of microorganisms to study them in the laboratory. This allowed conducting thorough examinations of their cellular structures such as the extensive cytoskeleton.

#biology #archaea #Asgard #eukaryotes #Lokiarchaeum ossiferum

[planetwisdompoet]

Seeing is really, believing! #seeingisbelieving #poems #poets #archaea #extremophiles #thermophiles #methanogens #gases #organisms #climate #climatechange #planetwisdompoet https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm1qtOgt3Iv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#seeingisbelieving #poems #poets #archaea #extremophiles #thermophiles #methanogens #gases #organisms #climate #climatechange #planetwisdompoet