Cell Junctions

"Wherever you are on your journey to the microcosmos, the odds are high that you'll run into a diatom. They're both abundant and easy to spot because of the shells they encase themselves in. The results are beautiful, exacting geometries that create a living kaleidoscope in the microcosmos. Even if you lived your entire life without ever seeing a diatom, without ever hearing the word "diatom", you would still be living a life that's shaped by them... all the way down to the oxygen you breathe, thanks in no small part to their outsized contribution to the world's photosynthesis."

Journey to the Microcosmos- How Diatoms Build Their Beautiful Shells

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

Astrionella 630x, Bacillaria paxillifer 200x, Diatom 630x, Diatom 630x, Diatom frustule 630x, Diatoms 630x

Metabolic Modeling of Gut Bacteria in Fish Fed Agricultural Waste: Implications for Human Health (Bioinformatic work)

Enzyme Function Prediction from Amino Acid Sequence: How AI is Leading the Way

New AI tool 'CLEAN' predicts enzyme functions from amino acid sequences, even for unstudied or poorly understood enzymes.

An innovative artificial intelligence program called CLEAN (contrastive learning–enabled enzyme annotation) has the ability to predict enzyme activities based on their amino acid sequences, even if the enzymes are unfamiliar or inadequately understood. The researchers have reported that CLEAN has surpassed the most advanced tools in terms of precision, consistency, and sensitivity. However, a deeper understanding of enzymes and their roles would be beneficial in a number of disciplines, including genetics, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, medicine, and industrial materials.

The scientists are using the protein language to forecast their performance, similar to how ChatGPT uses written language data to generate predictive phrases. Almost all scientists desire to comprehend the purpose of a protein as soon as they encounter a new protein sequence. Furthermore, this tool will aid researchers in promptly recognizing the suitable enzymes needed to manufacture chemicals and materials for various applications, be it in biology, medicine, or industry.

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This is super interesting and discusses how tilling soils destroys the microbiome of soil, with some micro fauna and microbe populations not even fully recovering in disturbed soils for upwards of 10 years.

That's why the best ways to improve soil is through top dressing with mulch!

Hydra (genus)

©️nonotnow photography.

🔬~microscope: biolam r11~

📸iPhone 11

Did we kill them?

Looking at what concentrations my antibiotics killed resistant Staphylococcus bacteria.

Higher antibiotic concentrations are on the right side, where there is clear liquid with no bacteria growth. It works!

just some very Shaped things

lil chemistry moodboard for motivation 🧪🥼

Back when I asked for some concepts in September on my Instagram, @ sammithyst suggested a mon based on Petrie duals, a term in topology that refers to a loop of edges that can split a 3D shape in half in a certain way. Although that was incorporated into the design of this mon (skew polygon "teeth on each dish"), the name reminded me of Petri dishes.

Petri dishes are shallow dishes with a cover that is used to grow all sorts of cells, like bacteria, fungi, and even human cells. Cells can be grown with the growth medium that is put into the dish, some sort of food like some agarose gel or a liquid mixture of nutrients.

Cantri (Poison/Psychic): When dormant, they reside completely inside their dish, only coming out when they run out of the food that dragged in. Despite having many protozoan-like cells in their body, they seem to be resistant to the antibiotics of this world.