{"id":5131,"date":"2011-05-13T09:17:36","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T13:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=5131"},"modified":"2011-05-13T09:17:36","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T13:17:36","slug":"the-evolution-of-beer-yeasts-seedy-pants-and-vampire-bat-venom-turned-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/05\/13\/the-evolution-of-beer-yeasts-seedy-pants-and-vampire-bat-venom-turned-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"The evolution of beer yeasts, seedy pants and vampire bat venom-turned medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Beer yeasts:<\/strong> Researchers at Lund University in Sweden tracked the history of two yeasts\u2014Saccharomyces cerevisiae<\/em> and Dekkera bruxellensis<\/em>\u2014used in alcohol fermentation to pinpoint their role in ethanol production. They found that, around 150 million years ago, competition with other microbes, and the overall increase in sugar-rich fruits, encouraged the yeasts to withstand high ethanol concentrations\u2014an adaptation that would allow them to survive in places other microbes could not. \u201cNow, scientists are closing in on just how and why yeast evolved to [ferment sugars into alcohol],\u201d wrote John Roach in an MSNBC<\/em> article. \u201cNo, it wasn\u2019t to get humans drunk.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cThe why of yeast\u2019s buzz-giving ways\u201d or the press release<\/a> \u201cWine yeasts reveal prehistoric microbial world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camouflaged cuttlefish:<\/strong> \u201cCuttlefish are masters of camouflage. Like their relatives, the squid and the octopus, cuttlefish can change the colour of their skin to perfectly match a bed of pebbles, a clump of algae, or a black-and-white chessboard,\u201d wrote Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science<\/em> (see below video of previous research). Alexandra Barbosa from the University of Porto found that cuttlefish use visual cues to alter their appendages as well. In other words, when the cephalopods were placed against backgrounds of various striped patterns, they adjusted their tentacles to match the pattern that they saw. Read more<\/a> and see photos at \u201cPocket Science \u2013 will all camouflaged cuttlefish please raise their tentacles?\u201d<\/p>\n

Seedy pants:<\/strong> One of the most topical quotes this week\u2014\u201cI wish nature would stop getting it on in my eyeballs\u201d\u2014was uttered by a fellow allergy sufferer. Allergy season is in full force in temperate locales, such as some parts of the U.S. East Coast, as trees flood the air with pollen in the hopes of reaching a female counterpart. There are several ways that pollen travels, such as the wind, but most of us have probably never considered the role of pants in tree pollination. Yes, pants not plants. As quoted in a recent NPR<\/em> article, \u201c\u2018Because of his great mobility,\u2019 [British botanist Edward] Salisbury wrote (projecting from his personal data set), \u2018man is probably the most active agent\u2014though usually an unconscious one\u2014for [the] external transport of seeds.\u2019\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cStrange Things Happen To Guys Who Wear Pants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vampire bat venom:<\/strong> Scientists have tapped vampire bat saliva as a potential medication for treating stroke in humans, and the drug is actually called \u201cDraculin.\u201d It was announced this week that the drug would enter Phase 2 tests. \u201cWhen vampire bats bite their victims, their saliva releases an enzyme called desmoteplase, or DSPA, into the bloodstream, which causes blood to flow more readily,\u201d wrote Patrick Morgan on Discover<\/em>\u2019s blog 80beats<\/em>. \u201cSeveral years ago, scientists realized that the same enzyme that gives bats more blood for their bite may also help stroke victims by breaking down blood clots.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cDraculin, Stroke Drug From Vampire Bats, Moves Closer to Circulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seabird social lives:<\/strong> Ken Yoda from Nagoya University and colleagues used mini-video cameras to track the social behavior of young brown boobies (see below video). \u201cThe video cameras captured footage of them chasing other juveniles and following adults to feeding areas. The juvenile boobies also mingled with other seabird species, like brown noddies<\/a>, streaked shearwaters<\/a> and black-naped terns<\/a>,\u201d Jane Lee reported in a Wired Science<\/em> article. The researchers noticed greater social interaction between young boobies and adult boobies; this is compared with the time they spent interacting with other young boobies. Read more<\/a> at \u201cBooby Cams Capture Young Seabird Social Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, the impact of recent flooding<\/a> on wildlife, surface dwelling fish<\/a> show signs of distress in the dark, eukaryotic sex<\/a>, soy crops<\/a> in the U.S., illegal trade in bear bile<\/a> in Asia, fools gold in hydrothermal vents<\/a>, chitin-less microscopic fungi<\/a>, bed bugs<\/a> and bacteria and is \u201cteaching\u201d a human-specific<\/a> phenomenon?<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Nick Hobgood<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beer yeasts: Researchers at Lund University in Sweden tracked the history of two yeasts\u2014Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Dekkera bruxellensis\u2014used in alcohol fermentation to pinpoint their role in ethanol production. They found that, around 150 million years ago, competition with other microbes, and the overall increase in sugar-rich fruits, encouraged the yeasts to withstand high ethanol concentrations\u2014an adaptation that would allow them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[146,531,638,3,950,922,978,1199,866,249,808,459,927,952,1202,1112,910,174,235,1118,1181,589,140,1144,1075,957],"class_list":["post-5131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-adaptation","tag-asia","tag-bacteria","tag-bats","tag-beer","tag-behavior","tag-bugs","tag-cephalopod","tag-color","tag-competition","tag-crops","tag-east-coast","tag-ethanol","tag-fermentation","tag-flood","tag-microbes","tag-oceans","tag-pollination","tag-reproduction","tag-season","tag-seed","tag-social","tag-trees","tag-venom","tag-visual","tag-yeast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}