Snippets (biology)

Things to use or delete. See Snippets.

The Most Basal Whale

Pakicetus is an extinct genus of amphibious cetacean of the family Pakicetidae, which was endemic to Pakistan during the Eocene.[1] The vast majority of paleontologists regard it as the most basal whale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus

Elysia chlorotica

Elysia chlorotica (common name the eastern emerald elysia) is a small-to-medium-sized species of green sea slug, a marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusc. This sea slug superficially resembles a nudibranch, yet it does not belong to that clade of gastropods. Instead it is a member of the clade Sacoglossa, the sap-sucking sea slugs. Some members of this group use chloroplasts from the algae they eat, a phenomenon known as kleptoplasty. Elysia chlorotica is one of the "solar-powered sea slugs", utilizing solar energy via chloroplasts from its algal food. It lives in a subcellular endosymbiotic relationship with chloroplasts of the marine heterokont alga Vaucheria litorea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysia_chlorotica

Radioactive gold jewelry

At some time during the 1930s and 1940s, gold brachytherapy seeds that previously contained radon-222 were melted down by an unknown individual or individuals. Presumably this occurred somewhere in upstate New York. The gold, contaminated with the long-lived decay products of radon (Pb-210, Bi-210 and Po-210), was then mixed with uncontaminated gold and used to manufacture jewelry. Over the years, the wearing of this jewelry, the rings in particular, resulted in mild to severe skin damage. In the 1960s, dermatologists recognized that the damage seemed to be related to the jewelry and had the latter analyzed by health officials who determined that the jewelry was indeed radioactive. Although the issue was addressed in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1967 (JAMA 205(8):595-596), it seems that the matter of radioactive gold jewelry wasn't taken seriously until the 1980s.

https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/hpposters/goldjewelry.htm

Spondylus

Spondylus is a genus of bivalve molluscs, the only genus in the family Spondylidae. They are known in English as spiny oysters (though they are not, in fact, oysters).

They look cool: spiked bivalves.

Stichaster striatus

Stichaster striatus, the common light striated star, is a species of starfish in the family Stichasteridae, found in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. It was first described by the German zoologists Johannes Peter Müller and Franz Hermann Troschel in 1840.

It has been found that an aqueous extract of S. striatus, when fed to rats with a genetic disposition to consume alcohol to excess, reduced their voluntary intake of alcohol.[4] This line of research was inspired by an oral tradition that Jesuit property-owners in South America in the 17th and 18th century fed "starfish soup" to their workers to encourage sobriety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichaster_striatus

Rectal thermometer blues

"Once had a father abscond from the ER with his feverish toddler because he wasn’t gonna let us “turn him faggot” by taking a rectal temperature."

https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/nra-president-ollie-north-partially-blames-school-shootings-on-ritalin/121440/16

Birth Canal

It is not polite to shout “birth canal!” in a crowded delivery room.

Myxococcus xanthus

Myxococcus xanthus is a gram-negative, rod-shaped species of myxobacteria that exhibits various forms of self-organizing behavior as a response to environmental cues. Under normal conditions with abundant food, it exists as a predatory, saprophytic single-species biofilm called a swarm. Under starvation conditions, it undergoes a multicellular development cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxococcus_xanthus

Palaeocastor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeocastor

Bacteriophage iron spike

[R]esearchers modified the phage's spike genes so that they only produced the portion of the protein tip that was resistant to being viewed. When they crystallized this smaller protein fragment, the x-rays were finally able to resolve its structure, and from this the team had the very first picture of the tip of the spike: a single iron atom held in place by six amino acids, forming a sharp needlelike tip—perfectly suited for piercing the outer membranes of bacteria. The team reports its findings this month in Structure.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/02/bacteria-killing-viruses-wield-iron-spike