[HN Gopher] Spider webs capture environmental DNA from terrestri...
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Spider webs capture environmental DNA from terrestrial vertebrates
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 81 points
Date : 2024-02-01 13:33 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cell.com)
| pvaldes wrote:
| Kept on a zoo enclosure. This point is important IMAO.
| crazydoggers wrote:
| > Webs from woodland and zoo show eDNA from native and non-
| native fauna, respectively
| pvaldes wrote:
| It does not matter, the effect on the enclosure is the
| problem.
| djtriptych wrote:
| They compared a web found in native woodlands to a web in a zoo
| enclosure to demonstrate the potential to detect local animal
| populations. The zoo had more species because it's a zoo. They
| didn't limit the study to only zoo-bound webs as you seem to be
| suggesting.
| samstave wrote:
| This will be really neat when we have Spide-Spun-Space-
| Sensors whereby a planet it cluster-bombed with sensor-balls
| with a special spider-silk-style web which can grab DNA, but
| onboard sequence it... and report back to the orbiting drone
| before self destruction.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You can just vacuum and filter the air for dna
| samstave wrote:
| Wow, crime scene DNA-Devil: Here is a simple attempt at
| an sensor gun to dirt-devil up crimescene DNA powered by
| SyDNAr sensors (TM):
|
| https://i.imgur.com/kkxhEqJ.jpg
|
| https://i.imgur.com/aMk7UfM.jpg
|
| :-)
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Oh! Reminds me of my favorite Sci-Fi ever:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
| cgriswald wrote:
| I'm on the third book of The Final Architecture Series and it's
| great space opera with good story-telling. The world of the
| series feels real and yet mysterious and fantastical.
|
| I looked into his other series when I discovered him and was
| hesitant to get invested in Children of Time because the
| reviews I read were mixed and many said it was (paraphrasing
| here) good but something of a slog.
|
| What do you love about it, and--if you've read them--how does
| it compare to TFA series?
| blamestross wrote:
| Spider Civilization.
|
| I like TFA a lot, but it is very character driven. CoT is a
| collectivist story, the non-human-centric story reads like
| David Attenborough is narrating it. I like that part a lot.
|
| The human/character driven parts of the story feel a bit
| tacked-on and not actually critical to the themes and
| messages of the story.
|
| I think it is worth a read, and the sequels are more
| character driven than CoT.
| cmrx64 wrote:
| Maybe I was hallucinatung more detail than was there, but I
| found parts of the book had stunning parallels between the
| themes of each storyline, where the symbolic struggles by
| each cast of characters informed or reflected somehow the
| struggles of the other.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Hey, thanks for the response. This helps.
| geden wrote:
| Children of Time series a slog? Wow. It's a page turning
| spine tingling, rip roarer. Stuffed full of high concepts,
| great characters and wry humour.
|
| As is the second book. Which kind of adds a horror slant.
|
| The third book is more ambitious and conceptual and in parts,
| slightly harder going. Still highly rewarding.
|
| Best hardish SF series I've read in recent years.
| wegfawefgawefg wrote:
| I like this book but the human parts suck!! I just wanna read
| about spiders. Not about some people on a ship.
| sockaddr wrote:
| True, but the dysfunctional humans give much needed context!
| sdenton4 wrote:
| And Kern - arguably human, at some point in the narrative -
| is one of my all-time favorite characters.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| The Barbie Movie was huge right?
|
| But I would love to see a feminist movie made from "Children of
| Time". Female Spider society
|
| Where the Female Spiders rule, and eat the men.
|
| And casually talk to each other like "you feel like going to
| hunt some men tonight", and literally eat them.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Neat! A segment on this was on my local NPR yesterday.
|
| As noted in the article, the aim is to boost (chronically
| underfunded and logistically challenging) biodiversity studies.
|
| >> _With only trace amounts of DNA needed to identify species,
| the data obtained have the ability to strengthen biodiversity
| assessments through improving the detection and monitoring of
| rare, cryptic, or protected species, increasing the taxonomic
| resolution of biodiversity surveys, allowing for increased
| sampling of inhospitable or challenging environments to survey,
| and aiding in the early detection of invasive species._
|
| Critically, they just used a plastic stick to collect webs. So
| pretty cost-effective!
|
| Looks like UV plays a major degrading role, so sunlight-shielded
| webs yielded the best results. Which makes sense, because DNA.
| echelon wrote:
| Tangent: this could potentially be used to surveil humans in
| sensitive areas, such as banks. If humans shed enough DNA via
| exfoliation and breathing, you could capture DNA and process it
| in the event of a robbery. eDNA surveillance could become a
| valuable tool in heavy crime areas.
|
| It could possibly also be used to surveil humans more
| nefariously, though. IIRC, I think this was a plot point of
| GATTACA.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You can already do this by sampling the air, no spiderweb
| needed.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/dna-pulled-thin-
| air-...
| krunck wrote:
| Also great for surveillance of human mammals, especially for
| knowing which ones frequent which areas. That is assuming you
| already have their DNA for comparison. Or no? Would this work?
| bglazer wrote:
| Probably not, DNA degrades relatively quickly in uncontrolled
| conditions, so the unique markers of an individual human would
| probably be hard to grab from a dust particle suspended on a
| spider web. This works for detecting different species, not
| necessarily individuals.
|
| Plus, there are infinitely easier ways of surveilling humans,
| like just watching where their GPS tracked phones go.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There are also easier ways of tracking humans via DNA - we're
| literally shedding genetic material with every step, on
| everything we touch. Skin flakes here, saliva there, etc.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| And all of that is dispersed in the air that you could
| theoretically collect and sample in your hvac system.
| verisimi wrote:
| > DNA degrades relatively quickly in uncontrolled conditions
|
| Alternatively, it hangs around for millions of years.
|
| https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/december/worlds-
| old...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Yes it works for mammals too. It works with just a vacuum even
| outdoors.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/dna-pulled-thin-air-...
| a_bonobo wrote:
| there's a cool preprint from a few weeks ago where they
| sequenced a collection of 34 years worth of air-filters in
| Sweden: lots of mammals! eDNA, just from air.
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.06.569882v1
|
| Up to ~35% of the detected DNA was human (Fig S5)
| tome wrote:
| I was curious about the use of "terrestial", and it looks like it
| means "not aquatic" rather than "not from outer space".
| wegfawefgawefg wrote:
| i think terrestrial would mean earthly. from the latin root,
| terra, for earth. from space is extra-terrestrial. But then
| greek is geo, or gaio like gaia. but we dont call aliens super-
| gaians. I dont know where im going with this. Language is
| messy. English doesnt include every version of every root. We
| do have subterranian though. Superterranian?
| curiouscavalier wrote:
| We've sent spiders to space[0] (honestly, it's like we _want_ a
| horror movie to play out). But who knows - maybe one day we'll
| get DNA from extraterrestrials.
|
| [0] https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/world-s-first-
| spidernau...
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