Symbiogenesis

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a room with privileged people - students, professors and researchers, listening to a talk which dealt with  the topic on Symbiogenesis. The speaker, Dr. Lynn Margulis,  was a not an ordinary person as she has been credited for the widely-accepted  endosymbiotic theory of the origin of eukaryotic cells. She is currently a distinguised professor in the department of geosciences at the University of Massachusets in Amherst.

It was about 6 years ago since I knew about Dr. Lynn Margulis. I was a member of a large delegation of biology professors from all over the US grading the 2006 Advanced Placement test in Biology (APBiology) in the University of Nebraska -Lincoln. No, she was not one of us. But her name always popped up in almost every page of the test booklets I read. The question was about the origin of the first eukaryotes and many students unnecessarily mentioned her as the proponent of the theory.

In that lecture, I paid particular attention on how she talked and how she relayed the wealth of information within a limited period of time in a presentation. For people like her, I thought,  are exceptional mortals and are endowed with the unique critical skill in weaving a major  scientific concept which makes it to the college textbook. And all I wanted was to emulate her wits and style.

Symbiogenesis, the merging of two entirely different organisms to form a new organism, is not really new. This idea was synthesized in the 1920s by a famous Russian botanist in a book titled Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution. Symbiogenesis was considered a major driving force in evolutionary biology along with Darwinian's natural selection. This treatise on symbiogenesis however, suffered the same fate as Gregor Mendel's theory of inheritance,  gathering dust in the library's bookselves over a long period of time as they were ignored by the scientific community. In just about a year ago, The Harvard University Press published a English Translation of the book where Lynn Margulis was one of the co-editors. The re-discovery of symbiogenesis has begun an exciting era in evolutionary research.

We share this planet with a gazillion of other living organisms. We share our bodies to tons and tons of other living organisms. Lice in our heads or pubes; worms inside our guts; fungi in between our toes, armpits and yeasts in the vagina; and of course the truckloads of bacteria and protozoans which call our intestines their abode, others invading every inch of our skin, eyes, nose, mouth and not to mention the genitalia. These are part of who we are. They make vitamins for us! They make us stinky! Many of the them form our normal biota where they offer themselves the 'military' protecting our bodies from invading 'alien' microorganisms.   

Similarly, in bodies of other organisms live tons and tons of living hitch-hikers.Symbiosis, the close association and coexistence of different forms of organisms, therefore has become the way of life. Symbiosis causes different consequences to the parties involved, parasites get 'fat', hosts nutrient-deprived, commensals mutually benefited. When the host becomes immunocompromised, the opportunistic pathogenic endosymbionts (those who live within our bodies)  are out there to defeat the host in a disease. In short, both the endo- and ecto-symbionts make our either bodies better or bitter.

Dr. Margulis used the sea slug, a close relative of the squids and octopuses, as one example that seems to exemplify the process of symbiogenesis. Many different species of sea slugs obtain defense structures, like the nematocysts from the deadly jellyfish, portuguese-man-of-war. Instead of being destroyed, these stinging cells are kept by the slugs for their own defense. There is a certain species of sea slugs which feeds voraciously on algae. Instead of being broken down as food, some algae stayed infact and remained functional within the animal body, as endosymbionts. The slug, which is shaped life a flat leaf, looks green because of the presence of the algae which carry on photosynthesis inside the slug body. So here is an animal that, through its of endosymbionts, is capable of photosynthesis. Examination of the eggs produced by the slug showed the presence of chloroplast genes in the cytoplasm. 

This could just be the tip of the iceberg. There could be many animals out there whose close contact and  strong association with other organisms, may result to the formation of an entirely different organism in the long run. In here, missing links will not be an issue. The scientist may just have to look closely which other organisms that are associated. And by looking at the different DNA fingerprints, the identity of these associated oganisms can be obtained  by blasting their DNA sequence with the extensive database that are available.

Here is a nature's way of making transgenic animals!

The Faces of Morality

A religious couple, who has been married for over ten years, patiently kept on trying to have a baby. When they were about to surrender their childlessness up to their god, the wife found out she was pregnant. That was the best news ever for the couple. As the wife's pregnancy  progressed, she noticed something seemed not right. She developed pregnancy-induced hypertension (preeclampsia) due to mother-fetus serologic incompatilbility, putting hers and the fetus' life in danger. Sonographic examination and amniocentesis reveal the fetus suffers lethal genetic malformation and the chance for  survival is very nil. The physician recommended for immediate termination of  pregnancy for her safety. The couple did not heed the physician's advice for they don't want to  murder their unborn child!

S. P. is an intelligent, outgoing, happy-go-lucky teenaged girl who simply enjoys life. She has a boyfriend her age. They love  hanging-out and chilling with other teens, their age. As many curious teens would do, they experiment on stuff like pot, alcohol and sex. S.P. got impregnated and was in a dilemma. She did not want to inform her parents about the pregnancy, and she certainly was not ready for the daunting responsibility of raising a child as a single mom. The boyfriend deserted her after finding out she got impregnated. S.P.  terminated the pregnancy! To her, it was the best thing to do!

To kill or not to kill? There are only two answers, neither is  right nor  wrong!

Morality is a very delicate yet a very subjective topic. Just like beauty, being moral (or immoral) lies in the eyes of the beholder! That's because there is not a single standard to measure morality. It is looked at differently by different groups of people.

This bring us to the question on what serves as the basis for morality For christians, morality stands on a solid ground rooted in the Bible. Any act done against or in contradiction with the doctrines of their church could be hailed immoral! The Mosaic Law provides a long list of Dos and Don'ts for christians to observe. But even among the different christian groups, people are divided as to what acts are considered immoral, which ones not! In the two cases presented earlier, is killing considered an immoral act? The ultraconservatives would say yes outrightly! For the act itself is in defiance of the Mosaic Law 'thou shall not kill.'  But killing people were rampant in the days of the bible just as the present days. Even god himself caused massive killing of people, the highest form of genocide, when Noah refused people to let them in in their ark during the Great Flood. Innocent babies were killed as consequence with the parents  not painting their  front doors with the sacrificial lamb's blood for the Passover!

The muslim religious extremists hold on to their belief that killing people who they consider as 'infidels' would merit them great rewards in the afterlife. What motivates a young and just-after-puberty suicide bomber to sacrifice his earthly life in killing people is the reward of being with 42 virgins in the afterlife! Killing is not regarded as immoral, in this case!

The non-believers got their system of calling morality. Being not under any church doctrines makes their notion of morality a little more pragmatic and more than philosophical.

Morality has been invented by man. Whatever it is based on, morality deals with what is the right thing to do! It is laced with elements of subjectivity. For there is no clear cut black- and- white in morality,  many things are in the gray zone.

I see the evolution of practical morality in the future. Where terminally-ill patience with nothing but hopelessness on top of their constant suffering  and excruciating pains can openly opt for physician-assisted end-of-life care without the fears and apprehensions of not going to heaven (for those who believe!) and with full support by their church. For doing so seems to be the right thing to do if only to make their sufferings a little less unbearable. Furthermore, I see a society that recognizes and embraces people's diversity. As it is now, morality digs that  deep and big gap which divides the people. Self-proclaimed moralists are easy to render judgments, and cause indignation among others.  Living in harmony seems to be the right to do, and that implies being tolerant instead of judgmental to others. This means respecting and accepting other people for who they are,  regardless of race, creed and belief systems, and most importantly, sexual orientation!

I see this coming! But probably not in my lifetime...



As the Earth's Land Area Is Shrinking

Global warming is blamed for the rising of sea water levels which sinks islands under water. Droughts and rampant forest denudation choked watershed areas and aquatifers  slowly killing the lakes, rivers and streams. More and more areas are slowly becoming deserts. With urbanization and industrialization, large areas of tractable lands are converted into residential areas,  developed into recreaction facilities or commercial establishments. These are causing the earth's land surface to keep on shrinking.

Food production hinges largely on how much land area is available to grow crops and raise animals. Menaced by the shrinking acreage of arable lands and the ever increasing demand for food due to the ever-increasing human population worldwide, scientists are left with the only option of producing more food within less available land. This was the major driving force in the so-called  'agricultural revolution'!

I could still remember, when  I was a young, farmers used to plant traditional varieties of rice in their fields. The rice grew tall, and the winds could easily knocked them down to the ground especially during the booting stage when the grains started to fill. This explained why traditional varieties yield way too low per acreage. In the 1970's, the International Rice Research Institute released new rice varieties, one of which was dubbed  the 'miracle' rice. The rice plants grew up to only knee high, and were resistant to shattering. Being stout and short, normally the plants were able to support the grains at booting until up to harvest. True to its name, a huge increase in yield,  amazingly up to 10 times, were enjoyed by the farmers.

Scientists have developed ways to close in the gap between food production and the increasing global demand for food. They developed genetic engineering or recombinant DNA, a tool which radically changed the way scientists develop new and superior varieties of plants and animals. This technique cuts short generation times needed in the conventional breeding methods. In a nutschell, through this technology, scientists can source out good genes from different plant or animals species, and have them pieced together in a new breed, just like a designer jean. These newly-designed plant or animal varieties will go to the farmers' field or ranch for mass production. A visit to the produce aisle in any huge grocery, one could easily admire the good-looking red, green and yellow bell peppers, huge bright red seedless watermelon, huge ears of freshly-picked sweet corn, and a wide variety of potatoes and tomatoes. Many of them are designer products, now known as 'genetically-modified' crops.

In addition to designing high yielding varieties of crop plants, agriculture is taking a second look at promoting 'hanging gardens'. Vertical structures are built,  on each side, layers of  horizontal 'plots' are planted with crops. Growing some vegetables hang upside down is another practice in consideration.

It's not only the planting of crops that is affected by the shrinkage of agricultural lands. Raising cattle, lamb or goat suffers the same fate as ranches and grazing lands get smaller. As such,  animal breeders came up with rather grain-feeding instead of mostly grazing kinds. In the news lately, a scientist is trying to grow meat in the laboratory. Cultured meat, anyone? Why not?

It has become common practice now using stem cells  to replace certain defective adult body part.s On the same premise, one scientist is using myoblasts, the embryonic stem cells which give rise to the muscles in the body, to start with his meat culture. Pork myoblast for pork, beef myoblast for beef, lamb myoblast for lamb. A beef myoblast made to grow around a T-shaped streak of osteoblast (the stem cells for making bones) , given the right mix of growth substances.... voila, a T-bone steak!  So why raise a whole cow when one needs only the meat? This is called tissue engineering!

Engineering has infiltrated and significantly re-designed the architectural lansdcape of  biological science. There is genetic engineering, protein engineering, food engineering, tissue engineering... Engineering will continue to adulterate the minds of biologists in response to the increasing challenge of life sustainability  amidst the different adversities.

An image in my crystal ball, I see  'green' humans and animals in the future. No, am not thinking about Shrek or the green-haired ompa lompas! Another brave-new-world scenario is predicted where humans and other animals are engineered to contain chlorophyll in their skins instead of or in addition to the usual melanin. This seems very interesting and, apparently, a win-win situation . Imagine, our body producing food through photosynthesis as we walk or jog under the morning sun! We won't go hungry then! Probably thirsty, as the body's demand for water may be doubled - in photosynthesis and perspiration!