John L. Taylor @johnnylogic@qoto.org

[Recent research has shown that a particular algae has recently merged with a cyanobacteria (effectively making it an organelle) to allow it to fix nitrogen](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk1075). This transition from endosymbiosis to organelle has happened notably a few times in evolutionarily history: 2.2 billion years ago a single-celled organism swallowed up a bacterium that became mitochondria and later some cells absorbed cyanobacteria, resulting in chloroplasts. #biology

[Scientists have found the smallest example of a biological self-similar fractal in a well-known cyanobacteria](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07287-2). The asymmetric assembly of a particular enzyme used in the Krebs cycle in this bacteria forms a Sierpiński triangle (aka a repeating triforce, to Zelda fans). Cool! #biology

As John Tyler Bonner, a professor of ecology [put it](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/01/21/sultan-slime-biologist-continues-be-fascinated-organisms-after-nearly-70-years), slime molds are "no more than a bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath, yet they manage to have various behaviors that are equal to those of animals who possess muscles and nerves with ganglia – that is, simple brains."

#Biology, #Learning, #SlimeMold

Slime molds [are fascinating](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYQG6ac38UA). They can live as single-celled organisms or work together as a colony that differentiates functions and exhibits learning behaviors without having anything like a brain. Training one slime mold and then allowing it to fuse with another transmits the training with the new slime mold.

#Biology, #Learning, #SlimeMold, #Video

Efforts to save the endangered Fender’s blue butterfly have resulted in quadrupling the population as well as helping save its host plant, the Kincaid’s lupine, from a similar fate!

"[T]he species is slated to be downlisted from endangered to threatened. If this status change is finalized, as is expected to happen this year, Fender’s blue will become only the second insect to have recovered in the history of the Endangered Species Act." ([Story Source](https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.11/north-wildlife-how-a-rare-butterfly-returned), [Image Source](https://annualmeeting2020.npsoregon.org/fieldtrips.php?id=22))

#Conservation, #Biology, #Butterfly, #Flower, #GoodNews, #Oregon

"This video is taken from a 16-mm movie made in the 1950s by the late David Rogers at Vanderbilt University... It depicts a human polymorphonuclear leukocyte (neutrophil) [a type of white blood cell] on a blood film, crawling among red blood cells... The neutrophil is 'chasing' Staphylococcus aureus microorganisms, added to the film." ([Source](https://goopenva.org/authoring/459-white-blood-cell-chases-bacteria/view))

#Biology, #ImmuneSystem, #Science, #Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhJYtmZuhV4

#biology, #humor, #zefrank, #zoology

[Bumblebees play](https://www.tiktok.com/@science_is_real/video/7159926229351599406?_t=8XOXzG7xbgM&_r=1)! I shouldn't be too surprised since other insects show the capacity for emotion. Fruit flies apparently get down when being rejected by potential mates and [drink four times more alcohol](https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1215932) than successful ones.

#animals, #emotion, #biology, #play