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Holobionts: a new Paradigm to Understand the Role of Humankind in the Ecosystem
You are a holobiont, I am a holobiont, we are all holobionts. "Holobiont" means, literally, "whole living creature." It ...
Monday, August 10, 2020
The Virome: Viruses are an essential part of the human holobiont
Thursday, August 6, 2020
But what is a "superorganism," in the end?
What is a superorganism, exactly?
I was mulling over this question and I came up with the classic example: the ant colony is supposed to be a superorganism in the sense that all the organisms in it share the same genome, just like in a human beings all cells have the same DNA (except mitochondria, of course).
But no, wait! That cannot be: ants are sisters, not clones. They may even have different fathers. For a quirk of the genetic setup of male ants, ant sisters share 75% of their genes, not 50% as human siblings do. But they are not clones. So an ant colony is not a superorganism, but a kind of tightly knit holobiont.
But then, a discovery: that's not true, either! As reported in this paper, there are ant colonies where all the ants are clones of each other! Unbelievably, some ants have discover tricks to completely eliminate the need of males: yes, no males and no queens. They reproduce by parthenogenesis. These colonies are true superorganisms, not holobionts. And I keep discovering new things: one that starts to be very common is that males seem to be obnoxious and useless in all species!
Saturday, August 1, 2020
The Earth Goddess According to Jenny Jinya
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
A happy holobiont is a holobiont that takes care of its microbiome
Hand-washing aside, James Hamblin has not used soap for five years. He warns that our obsession with being clean is harming the microbiome that keeps us healthy
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Sex and Death among Holobionts and Organisms
Saturday, July 18, 2020
The March of the Holobots
I am just back from a scientific meeting held in a small city in the mountains, you know, like things were.... when? Was it the Pleistocene, when people met in person to discuss things? Or was it before the PETM, during the Paleocene? Anyway, you learn things while having discussions at dinner with the other attendees. And I had a very interesting dinner with a group of roboticists. Many, many ideas. One I came up with is that of the "Holobot" -- the solid state equivalent of the holobiont!
Bots are not based on cells, and they have no genetic code, either. So they are born holobionts.We are witnessing the birth of a new ecosystem that we might describe with the words of a recent article on Quanta Magazine (h/t Chuck Pezeshky):
"Within this theory, individuals can be cells, tissues, organisms, colonies, companies, political institutions, online groups, artificial intelligence or cities — even ideas or theories, according to Krakauer. “What we’re trying to do is discover a whole zoo of life forms that extend far beyond what we have conventionally called living,”So, the bots we are building can be seen as individuals and they do fulfill this extended definition of "life" -- a dynamic phenomenon that extends in time, not being just limited in space. It is just that they are not the same kind of life as ours. And so, onward, fellow holobots!
This subject is also being discussed on the Facebook group "The Proud Holobionts"