Since computational biology is all about simulation, do the chloroplast, the mitochondria, and now the nitro-last, have definitions that could be actively simulated ?
Fantastic - the nitroplast joining a pretty exclusive club there.
Bigelowii itself seems very interesting, even without this nitrogen fixing organelle, having two completely different phases to it's life - one in a weird dodecahedral calcareous shell and one without as a mobile flagellate. Apparently it can exist and reproduce in either form, and occasionally switch forms. It took scientists a long while to realize the two forms are actually the same species.
Comparing it to CO2 is facile, the problem there involves the equilibrium level (or lack thereof) between the flows of what is emitted to the pool versus removed.
Excess levels of bio-available nitrogen are unlikely to build up when there a huge and only-half-metaphorical appetite for consuming it and turning it back into N2 gas.
I've had cells growing fine in 20 L Cytiva wave bags and then fail to grow in 20 L Sartorius wave bags. Anyone that tells you they know how a cell grows is lying to themselves :)
The recent paper in explicitly discusses the matter "The prepared tokoroten was frozen at −20C, then thawed at room temperature. The thawed tokoroten separated into agar and liquid parts naturally,... " https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00318884.2026.26...
Azolla which at one point maybe caused an iceage is freshwater only and a symbiotic organism with a cyanobacteria, and the bacteria can't tolerate salt, maybe there is something cool we could do with nitroplasts to improve sea vegetation to reduce CO2
> The only organisms that can actually pull this off are ones that can get by without oxygen: super simple bacteria and archaea. That means the entire natural world relies on a relatively small number of microscopic species to make nitrogen usable by more complex forms of life.
I remember reading that this was a significant factor in why people were so alarmed over DDT. It had not been anticipated how widely it would spread beyond the places it was intentionally used and how it would persist. It ended up in almost all ecosystems, full of life it had never been tested on.
If it had turned out to kill many of those small number of microscopic species that almost all plant and animal life relies on we could have been royally screwed.
That obviously turned out not to be the case with DDT, but it made people realize that we had to be a lot more careful when designing and testing pesticides than we had been.
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[ 6.9 ms ] story [ 35.5 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastid
Bigelowii itself seems very interesting, even without this nitrogen fixing organelle, having two completely different phases to it's life - one in a weird dodecahedral calcareous shell and one without as a mobile flagellate. Apparently it can exist and reproduce in either form, and occasionally switch forms. It took scientists a long while to realize the two forms are actually the same species.
Deuce Bigelowii.
Huh.
Excess levels of bio-available nitrogen are unlikely to build up when there a huge and only-half-metaphorical appetite for consuming it and turning it back into N2 gas.
The "tokoroten" noodles are just agar.
Pretty much everyone in biology tries growing cells in agar, right? Surely that can't have been an amazing discovery?
It's crazy to me that we are still discovering these microscopic yet crucial parts of nature around us.
I remember reading that this was a significant factor in why people were so alarmed over DDT. It had not been anticipated how widely it would spread beyond the places it was intentionally used and how it would persist. It ended up in almost all ecosystems, full of life it had never been tested on.
If it had turned out to kill many of those small number of microscopic species that almost all plant and animal life relies on we could have been royally screwed.
That obviously turned out not to be the case with DDT, but it made people realize that we had to be a lot more careful when designing and testing pesticides than we had been.