[HN Gopher] A video of the transformation of a single cell into ...
___________________________________________________________________
A video of the transformation of a single cell into a salamander
Author : Hugsun
Score : 113 points
Date : 2023-08-26 18:17 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pmdvod.nationalgeographic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pmdvod.nationalgeographic.com)
| kodisha wrote:
| You have a single cell that keeps dividing, and dividing, and in
| each division it becomes slightly different, and at the end some
| end up being the hart, some is the leg muscle, some are brain,
| and some are eye nerve.
|
| Incredible, almost DIVINE..
|
| The terraforming script behind this mechanism, is one of the most
| complex and most beautiful mechanism that exists in this
| universe.
| neuronerdgirl wrote:
| Really cool video and I appreciate the deft editing hand on the
| different zooms and perspectives so we could see the most
| interesting details. My only critique would be that the sounds
| (especially the water slosh sounds) were a little distracting.
| The heartbeat was cool to indicate when the pulsing emerged and I
| guess the underwater sound was trying to set an atmosphere, but
| mostly I would have preferred to simply appreciate the video for
| what it was. Props to the maker regardless!
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| Not just this but if you look at the journey to microcosmos
| YouTube channel it has awesome videos of microorganisms that are
| single cell and you start to wonder what is life. How can one
| single cell know what to do, there is no cpu or logic with "if"
| and "then"
| arghwhat wrote:
| There are it's and then's: cells and their organelles are for
| all intents and purposes molecular machines.
|
| Some proteins might act as a sensor, binding to some other
| protein when triggered, in turn causing some action to occur.
| Kostic wrote:
| Truly magnificent.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Biology is the most advanced technology.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's a maintenance nightmare though.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Tell me about it. 34 and already encountering mechanical
| failures.
|
| Hurt my jaw while brushing my teeth.
| dylan604 wrote:
| glad i don't have to be a part of the code review
| calderwoodra wrote:
| Very cool - I always thought salamanders were reptiles, but I
| guess they're actually amphibians!
| xaei wrote:
| I believe this is an alpine newt, not a salamander (according
| to the end credits)
| jacquesm wrote:
| But a Newt _is_ a Salamander (but not all Salamanders are
| Newts).
| xaei wrote:
| Ah thank you. I spoke much too quickly. Order Urodela
| (etymology: conspicuous or evident tail).
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's very tricky because the way to distinguish them is
| to call the other ones in the same larger group 'true
| Salamanders' which already indicates that there was some
| historical confusion around naming these.
|
| The tree of life has been re-arranged many times already
| and as more genomes are sequenced we discover more and
| more non-obvious mistakes. For instance 'Comb jellyfish'
| have caused a major stir amongst evolutionary biologists.
|
| It's interesting how we needed taxonomy to figure out
| that there is such a thing as a tree of life and the
| basis for genomics and then, once we had that we had to
| go back and do (multiple) fairly major revisions to fix
| stuff that turned out to be wrong. The interesting thing
| is that the overall picture is still subject to such
| major changes.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| really cool video!
|
| sharing it on ios is proving hard because even the preview goes
| full screen preventing copying the url, lol. if anyone else hits
| this, turn on airplane mode then you can successfully long press
| to copy/share
| layer8 wrote:
| Just copy the submitted URL?
|
| https://pmdvod.nationalgeographic.com/NG_Video/772/995/14428...
| ornornor wrote:
| On Firefox iOS, it does fullscreen when long pressing the
| title, but then I can touch X and it goes back to how other
| links show up when long pressing. And then you can copy the
| url.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Breathtaking... wow. I found myself trying to guess what bit
| would become what and it never really worked, just endless
| transformation and re-absorption until _poof_ : salamander.
| Nature will never cease to amaze me.
| haswell wrote:
| There's something about seeing videos like this that breaks my
| brain.
|
| Science has learned so much about biology, but whatever knowledge
| I've gained is dwarfed by the sheer awe and wonder I feel when
| trying to contemplate what it is that I just saw here.
|
| The forces of nature converging to bring forth life from the
| energy released by the Big Bang billions of years ago.
|
| It boggles the mind - this mind that is somehow conscious of
| itself and which came into existence by an even more mind
| bendingly complex process.
|
| Being alive is unspeakably amazing.
| smokel wrote:
| Nearly all of the concepts you use to describe this experience,
| including "amazing", are only accessible to a (human) mind.
|
| If you came into being inside of, say, a rock instead of a
| human, you'd probably have less awe for creation.
|
| So I guess there is some survivorship bias in play. To most
| entities, the universe might be pretty boring.
|
| There's some food for thought :)
| sitkack wrote:
| Not necessarily, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPwXNFU7oU
| they might just perceive the universe on a different time
| scale.
| zvmaz wrote:
| It also has conscious experience: sensation of (probably)
| colored sight, it can feel pain, fear, etc. Where are these
| sensations located in the material universe? They are nowhere
| to be found under a microscope!
| teekert wrote:
| They are things that emerge at a higher level indeed, and
| could be considered a state of the matter that makes up the
| being, at a specific time.
|
| We don't look for minecraft mobs by pointing a microscope at
| a cpu, right?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| From cosmological dust to life! Why does it happen? Universe
| would be a lot simpler without it.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Natural selection! If you're like me, you probably understand
| the basics of evolution by natural selection, but it still
| seems to improbable/outlandish that such complex structures
| could be created just by natural selection, even with
| billions of years of time.
|
| I highly recommend Steven Pinker's book "How the Mind Works"
| as it has a great section on how natural selection works (and
| how it can be confusing even to many scientists), and how it
| can create complex structures (like the eye) generation-by-
| generation. I think it helped me understand natural selection
| as less of a biological "force" than as more of a
| mathematical outcome due to the statistics of non-perfect
| replicators.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| It seems identical to the breakthrough which unlocked the
| Information Age: the code which executes the data is the same
| _stuff_ as the data itself. The information which describes
| the machine can be modified by the machine.
|
| The genetic material which describes life and the organism
| which executes that code are one and the same.
| XorNot wrote:
| Not if you include entropy: the universe heads towards a
| simpler lower energy state much faster with life in it then
| without it.
| teekert wrote:
| To be fair, a fertilized egg is hardly cosmological dust ;)
| For that we need to go back some billions of years...
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I've always thought that if some God from another reality
| peeked into ours and saw two things, you and the Andromeda
| galaxy, they'd be interested in you. Entire galaxies are
| boring compared to even the simplest organisms. (As far as we
| know at least.)
| alexwasserman wrote:
| Should have [2019], I think. Been around a bit.
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/time-laps...
|
| Amazing video still.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Made me think of Cosmos:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUCS7l4-EU0
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Amazing video. Is it a single cell through at the beginning?
| genewitch wrote:
| Yes, because it mitosifies into two.
|
| At 2:30 it looks like conway's game of life, as an aside.
| cafeinux wrote:
| It seems to be an egg, which is a single cell. Also the first
| thing it does is divide.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Is the single cell the same organism as the salamander?
|
| Is the acorn that drops on the ground and grows in the soil the
| same organism as the oak tree into which it develops, living for
| hundreds of years?
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| They have the same DNA, that's for sure.
| rolph wrote:
| putative organism.
| praptak wrote:
| "Principles of Development" Wolpert, Tickle, Arias is a good book
| if you want to (begin to) understand what we know about this kind
| of biological self-assembly.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Thanks. Since seeing M. Levin's planaria's videos I'm on a
| quest to learn this topic (and usual developmental biology)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-26 23:01 UTC)