A tiny cell that broke a big rule of biology

(grist.org)

112 points | by gumby 5 days ago

8 comments

  • HarHarVeryFunny 2 hours ago
    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.

  • imzadi 2 hours ago
    This is a nicely written article, which feels like a rarity lately.
    • jjtheblunt 1 hour ago
      was just thinking the same: it's so refreshingly well written (!)
    • pixel_popping 1 hour ago
      it's a new model, human-sol-ultra, highly advisable to use in loops.
  • ninju 3 hours ago
    Kudos to the scientists everywhere that continue to explore the mysteries of nature
  • pravetz259 1 hour ago
    I'm skeptical of the "magic noodles" bit as mentioned in the article.

    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?

    • colingauvin 1 hour ago
      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 :)
    • poizan42 1 hour ago
      Maybe there is something else in Gelidium amansii that it needs, if the tokoroten was produced in the traditional way?
  • chasil 3 hours ago
    The plastid wiki might be germane.

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

    Edit: "It was a type of algae called Braarudosphaera bigelowii. Hagino fondly just calls it Bigelowii."

    Is this pronounced bigggie-lowie?

    • bradrn 1 hour ago
      It’s presumably named after Henry Bigelow (like several other things in oceanography), so my guess would be /bɪɡəˈlə͡ʊwi.a͡ɪ/.
  • ahazred8ta 5 days ago
    A 20 year search leads to the discovery of the nitroplast, a nitrogen-fixing organelle hiding inside algae.
  • whitten 3 hours ago
    Since computational biology is all about simulation, do the chloroplast, the mitochondria, and now the nitro-last, have definitions that could be actively simulated ?
    • dekhn 2 hours ago
      Practically speaking, while we could simulate them at a fairly approximate level, it wouldn't really tell us anything useful.
  • m3047 2 hours ago
    CO2, you say? Human activity produces tens of percent of the bioavailable nitrogen.
    • Catloafdev 2 minutes ago
      The article isn't even about CO2. Or man-made climate change. What are you trying to say?
    • Terr_ 11 minutes ago
      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.

      In contrast, excessive bio-available nitrogen is unlikely to build up when there a huge capability and not-really-metaphorical appetite for consuming it and turning it back into N2 gas.