Insects that can photosynthesize like plants? While devouring plants?
| August 18, 2012 | Posted by News under Evolution, News |
You thought the bendable teeth were amazing? Get this: In “First evidence for photosynthesis in insects” (Nature, 17 August 2012), Kathryn Lougheed tells us, “Aphids may have a rudimentary sunlight-harvesting system.”:
The biology of aphids is bizarre: they can be born pregnant and males sometimes lack mouths, causing them to die not long after mating. In an addition to their list of anomalies, work published this week indicates that they may also capture sunlight and use the energy for metabolic purposes.
Aphids are unique among animals in their ability to synthesize pigments called carotenoids. Many creatures rely on these pigments for a variety of functions, such as maintaining a healthy immune system and making certain vitamins, but all other animals must obtain them through their diet. Entomologist Alain Robichon at the Sophia Agrobiotech Institute in Sophia Antipolis, France, and his colleagues suggest that, in aphids, these pigments can absorb energy from the Sun and transfer it to the cellular machinery involved in energy production.
It’s not certain, to judge from the article, but it wouldn’t be that surprising. Apparently, the sea slug incorporates algae’s genes and chlorophyll factories (chloroplasts), to produce its own food, like a plant.
It’s not clear why the aphid does this:
Nancy Moran, an insect geneticist at Yale University in West Haven, Connecticut, who was responsible for the original discovery that aphids have the genes for carotenoid production, points out that there are many unanswered questions. “Energy production seems to be the least of an aphid’s problems — their diet is loaded with excessive sugar, most of which they cannot use,” she says.
Prediction: It won’t turn out to be an accident.
Evolution isn’t what it used to be. Never was.
10 Responses to Insects that can photosynthesize like plants? While devouring plants?
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A scientist noted this phenomenon prior to 2010 in Acyrthosiphon pisum:
http://arthropoda.wordpress.co.....to-aphids/
(And also noted differential predation patterns imposed on the red and green bioforms by two different predators, and then suggested lateral gene transfer as an area for future research.)
Must be hard for design etch-a-sketchas to play catch-up.
timothya I find it very interesting that you would, as a neo-Darwinist, accuse Design proponents of ‘etch-a-sketchas’, for if anyone is obviously guilty of drawing imaginary lines (drawing ‘etch-a-sketchas’) where no real evidence exists it is surely neo-Darwinists. For a primary example of this imaginary ‘etch a sketchas’ is the artistic license taken by neo-Darwinists with ape to man drawings:
But timothya, even though human evolution drawings, and the related propaganda of Darwinists, in terms of evidence, are perhaps the most dogmatically defended of Darwinian ‘etch a sketchas’, they are far from the only violation of Darwinists placing imagination over what the evidence actually says in the fossil record. Indeed most everyone has seen grade school textbooks with imaginary lines connecting all the spies in a tree like pattern, yet we find that reality is much different from what is portrayed in grade school textbooks:
Timothya, it is also very interesting that you would suggest that ‘lateral gene transfer as an area for future research’ was somehow a radical ‘scientific discovery’ of Darwinists, that ID proponents have somehow ‘missed’, when the plain fact of the matter is that these ‘magical’ large scale lateral gene transfers were invoked, as a last resort, by neo-Darwinists to ‘explain away’ genetic data that was severely in conflict with what they had originally presupposed with their model of gradualistic genetic change:
etc.. etc.. etc..
timothya perhaps you find such jerry-mandering of the evidence to arrive at a predetermined outcome acceptable in science, personally, I am appalled that neo-Darwinists repeatedly try to get away with these sorts of things in science!
BjornAgain (sorry but that is an Australian joke related to the Swedish pop band Abba).
Just read the original scientific publication on the topic of the aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. It might enlighten you.
a few more notes on the neo-Darwinists use of ‘lateral gene transfer’ to ‘explain away’ data:
And it is certainly not ‘minor’ conflicts in the genetic data that Darwinists are trying to ‘explain away’:
Further methods that neo-Darwinists use ‘explaining away’ genetic evidence that is incongruent with their hypothesis are discussed here:
also of further note: This following video goes very well with Stephen J. Gould’s ‘our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches’ comment I listed previously:
timothya, I have found that neo-Darwinists never really try to ‘enlighten, but have found their overwhelming propensity is to try to obfuscate and ‘darken’,,, perhaps you would care to watch this video on ORFan genes? it may enlighten you!
Widespread ORFan Genes Challenge Common Descent – Paul Nelson – video with references
http://www.vimeo.com/17135166
well timothya:
That’s a very peculiar word for a neo-Darwinist to use considering that you guys don’t really believe in ‘spiritual’ in the first place.
But to try, in my very limited ability, to use the word enlighten in its proper sense, in increasing ‘greater spiritual knowledge’, in regards to biology, as you claimed you would like to do for me, let’s enlighten, i.e. shed a ‘little more light on’, as to exactly how this ‘spiritual insight’ and biology might actually intersect in reality:
The following study offers a bit deeper insight into the ‘biophoton communication’ of the cell:
and to try to ‘enlighten’ us as to what this might mean for us ‘spiritually’:
As to enlightening us to what could possibly be holding this ‘spiritual light’, which Vicki talked about, together:
In the following article, Dr. Hameroff expands on the quantum computation aspect of Rieper, Anders and Vedral paper:
Here is empirical confirmation for quantum entanglement in DNA and proteins:
And to ‘enlighten us’ on the spiritual implications:
Moreover,,
i.e. Interestingly, quantum coherence is lost in biological systems upon death;
And yet the quantum information that is lost from the body upon death is now shown to be conserved. i.e. Quantum information cannot be destroyed!
Moreover there is now confirmed to be ‘higher dimensionality’ for both quantum information and energy (light)
i.e. Materialism had postulated for centuries that everything reduced to, or emerged from material atoms, yet the correct ‘top down’ structure of reality is now found by science to be as follows:
Also of interest, The weight of mass becomes infinite at the speed of light, thus mass will never go the speed of light. Yet, mass would disappear from our sight if it could go the speed of light, because, from our non-speed of light perspective, distance in direction of travel will shrink to zero for the mass going the speed of light. Whereas conversely, if mass could travel at the speed of light, its size will stay the same while all other frames of reference not traveling the speed of light will disappear from its sight.
Moreover time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light. To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.
It is also very interesting to point out that the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, reported in many Near Death Experiences(NDEs), is also corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please compare the similarity of the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ reported in very many Near Death Experiences: (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.)
Well timothya, do you feel enlightened?
Irony is obviously not your strong point, so I will be obvious. If you had taken a look at the Arthropoda article you would have found this:
“This polymorphism is of great ecological significance for the aphid. Parasitoid wasps prefer to lay their eggs in green aphids, and carnivorous ladybugs prefer to eat red aphids. If there is a spike in wasp parasitism, the red morphs become more predominant. If there is a spike in ladybug predation, then the green morphs become more common. By maintaining the genetic diversity of both color morphs in an aphid population, that population can guard against being wiped out by a temporal increase in parasites or predators.”
Hmmmm . . . a genetic adaptation that helps the aphid deal with environmental pressure from two different directions. Now I am enlightened.
timothya, ahh contraire, I thought my use, and proof, of the word ‘enlighten’ was far more ‘ironic’ than your use of the word was since my example actually ‘gave spiritual insight’ into the biological processes of ‘light’ itself and yours did not!,,,, Moreover it seems you have, once again,grievously, and mistakenly, assumed a Darwinian conclusion in this quote?
And exactly how is one to be enlightened of unguided Darwinian processes since no new genetic information is created in your example(as with every other example put forth by neo-Darwinists) but is only assumed from the outset? That is exactly why I referenced the ORFan gene video so as to perhaps focus you onto the actual evidence that your preferred Darwinian hypothesis needs to explain, and to stop you from assuming your conclusion into the evidence prior to investigation (but alas it appears you assumed it anyway)!
Oh well, Here is some more stuff for you to ignore the ‘spiritual enlightenment’ of (aka: more irony on the word ‘enlighten’ for you to miss the irony of):
further notes: