[HN Gopher] The comb jelly can fuse with another (including nerv...
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The comb jelly can fuse with another (including nervous and
digestive systems)
Author : alok-g
Score : 93 points
Date : 2025-01-01 05:57 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| kpjas wrote:
| Direct link to the paper: https://www.cell.com/current-
| biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)...
| theogravity wrote:
| Wonder if they were able to fuse more than two.
| k_sze wrote:
| This makes me think of a few follow-up questions:
|
| - Since we know that fusion happens to damaged jellies, do they
| remain permanently fused? Or do they eventually grow back the
| missing parts and split up again?
|
| - If they _do_ split up again, do both individuals wait for the
| other one to completely heal before splitting? If one side
| started off less damaged and healed faster, can it abandon
| /reject the other side without waiting for the other side to
| completely heal?
| pests wrote:
| Any time anything like this comes up I think back to a
| documentary on sponges and how they can have multiple
| individuals in one body, or one individual taking on multiple
| bodies. Maybe I am wrong, but this has always fascinated me in
| terms of what an organism is, about super organisms, and even
| more outlandish thoughts.
| asplake wrote:
| Perhaps more surprising (certainly it was to me), the
| Portuguese man o' war is a colony organism also.
| throwup238 wrote:
| They're even more interesting than most colonial organisms
| because they're made up of seven different colonies, all
| sharing the exact same genetics but morphing into different
| functions. They have a level of differentiation normally
| ascribed to much more complex organisms, that also looks
| nothing like their lifecycle.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| There are two types of slime mold: one that's a colony of
| many cells, and another that's a single organism: one giant
| super cell with multiple nuclei. I don't know which one
| tastes better though, but I do know a recipe for dog vomit
| slime mold, which is plasmodial, or acellular: an giant
| single cell organism, not a colony.
|
| https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/slime-
| molds.htm#:~:text=The....
|
| >There are two types of slime mold: cellular and acellular
| (plasmodial). During the life cycle of cellular slime
| molds, they remain as single cells. When an individual cell
| encounters a food source, it sends out a chemical signal
| which attracts others of its kind, drawing them in until
| they form a mass which is capable of movement in an amoeba-
| like fashion, with each cell maintaining its individual
| integrity. The fruiting bodies of cellular slime molds
| release spores, each of which becomes a single amoeboid
| cell when it germinates. Cellular slime molds are rarely
| visible to the naked eye.
|
| >On the other hand, plasmodial slime molds start out as
| individual amoeboid cells, but join together to form a
| multi-nucleate mass having only one cellular membrane (a
| "super-cell" containing multiple nuclei). This mass is
| referred to as a plasmodium and is frequently observed as
| threads of "slime" on rotting wood. The plasmodium matures
| into a network of interconnected filaments, which slowly
| moves as a unit as its protoplasm streams along the
| network. These plasmodia can be quite large; some species
| have been recorded to be over thirty square meters in size!
|
| >Also referred to as myxomycetes, plasmodial slime molds
| are commonly seen on decaying forest litter and rotting
| wood. They play an important role as decomposers and
| recyclers of nutrients in the food web. Their diet consists
| of the bacteria which feed on decomposing plant matter. In
| turn, slime molds may be consumed by nematodes, beetles,
| and other larger life forms. In the laboratory, slime molds
| have demonstrated the ability to navigate a maze in order
| to reach a food source, and to anticipate the reward of
| food at a future time after having been fed on a regular
| schedule at one location. They communicate via chemical
| signals to others of their kind. That's pretty impressive
| for an organism without a brain! They can be found
| throughout the world, but the Pacific Northwest and Mount
| Rainier National Park provide ideal habitat for these
| amazing creatures.
|
| Harvesting, cooking and eating Dog Vomit Slime Mold:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfbLSl_4o78
|
| >Fuligo septica is a species of slime mold, and a member of
| the class Myxomycetes. It is commonly known as the
| scrambled egg slime, or flowers of tan[2] because of its
| peculiar yellowish, bile-colored appearance. Also known as
| the dog vomit slime mold, it is common with a worldwide
| distribution, and it is often found on bark mulch in urban
| areas after heavy rain or excessive watering. Their spores
| are produced on or in aerial sporangia and are spread by
| wind.
| jbotz wrote:
| What about humans? Are we individual, indivisible beings or
| are we colonies of cells cooperating as a superorganism? That
| may sound like a dumb question since our cells are so
| specialized that they can't survive individually and can't
| "stop cooperating"... or can they?
|
| They can, that's what we call cancer... it's some of our
| cells rebelling and deciding to do their own thing, and to
| hell with the superorganism. Of course that isn't all that
| smart since the cancer will die when we die, right? Well,
| maybe not... although I don't know of any documented case in
| humans, _some_ cancers are known to migrate off their
| original organism and colonize others! An example of this is
| the tasmanian devil face cancer... it started on one
| individual and spread to others, the tumors on all infected
| devils having the genes of the original individual.
|
| But what about individual cells? Surely the buck stops there
| and they are individual, indivisible organisms? Not so fast!
| Cells of all eucaryotes (that's us) contain "organs"
| (mitochondria) that were once a separate form of life and
| still have their own genetic code, completely separate from
| the nuclear genetic code of our cells. Not only that, but it
| was recently discovered that they are still independent
| enough that they can migrate from one cell to another on
| their own.
|
| So, yeah, "individual organism" is an abstract concept that
| has different meanings at different scales and even at a
| specific scale is rather fluid. And I think "individual self"
| (or mind) is like that too, but that's another story...
| spratzt wrote:
| This was wonderfully explored in the following paper
|
| https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/668166
| sandworm101 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chimera
|
| It happens, although only when we are at a very early stage
| of development, a time when we share some traits with
| jellyfish. The growth of an embryo tracks our evolution. If
| you ever see a dog, or a person (see the model taylor muhl)
| with a color split down the middle of their body, there is
| a reasonable chance they joined with a twin in utero.
| Absent a color split, no doubt many of us are totally
| unaware that we may contain multiple gene sets.
| gcr wrote:
| You might also like reading about:
|
| - A summary of Dan Dennett's hypothesis that plurality
| (multiple headmates sharing one body) was common and
| socially accepted in ancient times:
| https://meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/
|
| - A primer from a few Google engineers who are plural and
| describe what that's like, complete with anecdata, failure
| states, etiquette, suggestions for collaboration, etc:
| https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook Told through the lens
| of dissociative identity disorder (generalized) as an
| intuition pump. Audience is "sympathetic teammates who want
| to learn more"
|
| - Plural communities, eg
| https://www.reddit.com/r/plural/top/ - anecdata of everyday
| experiences communicated through memes
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You can think of identical human twins as one organism with
| two bodies.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Better understanding of the mechanisms of allorecognition would
| be huge for transplant surgeries.
|
| For people trying to decide between death and transplant,
| possibly being able to tune down human-twitchy self
| identification would be amazing.
|
| To say nothing of those with autoimmune disorders, most of which
| have horrific symptoms.
| tliltocatl wrote:
| Jellies immune system is much more primitive, so not much to
| learn there, unfortunately.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Relevant if you like these creatures, an article on how an
| aquarium managed to raise them:
| https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/stories/growing-jellies
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Reminds me of the fictional, implausible drug called "Merge",
| from Rudy Rucker's book "Wetware", the first book in the Ware
| Tetralogy:
|
| https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/549301/
|
| Vertigo, Mad Mountain Man:
|
| The first book in Rucker's Ware Tetralogy was okay but I had this
| to say about the ending:
|
| The end was simply dreadful; it just fizzled out. There was very
| little conclusion and a lot of untied loose ends. It was so bad I
| was literally looking around for missing pages. Will I read the
| remaining books in the tetralogy? Probably as I have bought them
| as an omnibus, but another ending like that one will likely stop
| me dead.
|
| Well I didn't even reach the ending in this second book - Wetware
| - it was simply too dreadful.
|
| It was filled with the most implausible plot turns driven by the
| most unlikely character motivations. The entire progress of the
| book became more and more unrealistic as it went on. In the end I
| read about 150 pages out of 200; I couldn't even bring myself to
| finish the last 50 pages! Simply none of the critical decisions
| made by the rather large and badly managed cast were at all
| believable.
|
| Then there was the science, this was supposed to be cyberpunk,
| and it did have more of a cyberpunk feel than the last book, but
| I expect cyberpunk to be moderately hard SF; the technology
| should be a believable extrapolation of current technology. But
| this was more science fantasy and at times I'd have begrudged the
| 'Science' part of that description. The worst example appears in
| the first few pages; a new drug called merge. Now this drug has
| some pretty awesome properties. Under its affect a person's body
| is reduced to a puddle with bones somewhere inside which is
| supposed to be absolutely and massively addictive. Supposedly the
| drug loosens the 'binding' between cells or something. Also,
| should two (or more) people take the drug together their bodies,
| in the form of puddles in a bowl of some sort, can actually
| 'merge' (giving various orgasmic experiences to the
| participants). Then after the drug wears off the bodies simply
| recombine, somehow miraculously separating if two (or more) have
| merged, and re-emerge from the puddle back into a normal body
| again. That's assuming nobody has interfered with them whilst
| they are under the influence, like removing bones or scattering
| them. I mean I know we're coming up with some pretty funky
| biochemistry these days but, please.... And there are many other
| bits of technology, central to the plot rather than peripheral,
| which are equally pure fantasy.
|
| Now all this might be just about liveable with had it been well
| written. Sadly it was not. Despite the fact this was only 200
| pages long there were multiple scenes that contributed absolutely
| nothing to the plot. They could have been simply removed and the
| reader would have lost nothing. One particularly bad example had
| one of the main protagonists enter a bar of sorts where he just
| happens to sit down and start chatting with a couple of
| characters he's never met before, one of whom just happens to be
| another moderately important character. As the reader reads this
| passage it is natural for them to assume that this meeting will
| have some significance, but it has absolutely none; they never
| meet again (or I assume not; one was dead by the time I quit but
| with the book you never know) and nothing of any consequence
| takes place during the meeting itself. What on Earth is that all
| about?
|
| So sadly this one gets a big thumbs down and is the first book
| I've failed to finish for almost exactly a year (is it something
| to do with the middle of August?).
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(page generated 2025-01-05 23:01 UTC)