Scientists Engineered a See-Through Squid With Its Brain In Plain View (npr.org) 35
Scientists have genetically engineered a hummingbird bobtail squid to remove its pigment, creating an almost completely transparent animal with only its three hearts and brain showing when light hits it at the right angle. According to NPR, "The see-through squid are offering scientists a new way to study the biology of a creature that is intact and moving freely." From the report: The see-through version is made possible by a gene editing technology called CRISPR, which became popular nearly a decade ago. [Scientists Caroline Albertin and Joshua Rosenthal at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.] thought they might be able to use CRISPR to create a special squid for research. They focused on the hummingbird bobtail squid because it is small, a prodigious breeder, and thrives in lab aquariums, including one at the lab in Woods Hole. Albertin and Rosenthal wanted to use CRISPR to create a bobtail squid without any pigment, an albino. And they knew that in other squid, pigment depends on the presence of a gene called TDO.
"So we tried to knock out TDO," Albertin says, "and nothing happened." It turned out that bobtail squid have a second gene that also affects pigment. "When we targeted that gene, lo and behold we were able to get albinos," Albertin says. Because even unaltered squid have clear blood, thin skin, and no bones, the albinos are all but transparent unless light hits them at just the right angle. Early on, Albertin and Rosenthal realized these animals would be of interest to brain scientists. So they contacted Ivan Soltesz at Stanford and Cristopher Niell at the University of Oregon. "We said, 'Hey, you guys, we have this incredible animal, want to look at its brain," Rosenthal says. "They jumped on it."
Soltesz and Niell inserted a fluorescent dye into an area of the brain that processes visual information. The dye glows when it's near brain cells that are active. Then the scientists projected images onto a screen in front of the squid. And the brain areas involved in vision began to glow, something that would have been impossible to see in a squid with pigment. Because it suggests that her see-through squid will help scientists understand not only cephalopods, but all living creatures. The findings have been published in the journal Current Biology.
"So we tried to knock out TDO," Albertin says, "and nothing happened." It turned out that bobtail squid have a second gene that also affects pigment. "When we targeted that gene, lo and behold we were able to get albinos," Albertin says. Because even unaltered squid have clear blood, thin skin, and no bones, the albinos are all but transparent unless light hits them at just the right angle. Early on, Albertin and Rosenthal realized these animals would be of interest to brain scientists. So they contacted Ivan Soltesz at Stanford and Cristopher Niell at the University of Oregon. "We said, 'Hey, you guys, we have this incredible animal, want to look at its brain," Rosenthal says. "They jumped on it."
Soltesz and Niell inserted a fluorescent dye into an area of the brain that processes visual information. The dye glows when it's near brain cells that are active. Then the scientists projected images onto a screen in front of the squid. And the brain areas involved in vision began to glow, something that would have been impossible to see in a squid with pigment. Because it suggests that her see-through squid will help scientists understand not only cephalopods, but all living creatures. The findings have been published in the journal Current Biology.
I'd make an off-color joke about this squid (Score:4)
but I don't think anyone would see the humours in it...
Why not leave the poor squid alone? (Score:4, Insightful)
What is this sadistic mania of scientists to violently interfere with other creatures without getting their consent? Are they all Mengeles at heart?
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What is this sadistic mania of scientists to violently interfere with other creatures without getting their consent? Are they all Mengeles at heart?
So true..one would think it more obvious with the victims being so transparent and all...
Re:Why not leave the poor squid alone? (Score:5, Interesting)
We need the knowledge. Sadism has nothing to do with it. Experimentation like this is how we learn what we need to know in order to cure diseases and find new medical treatments and so on.
The natural world is not a kind place. These animals face threats of starvation, disease, and predation every moment of their natural lives. It's not like we are taking them out of some safe happy place just to make them suffer for fun. And anyway, most people think it is perfectly fine to raise animals in factory farms and then eat them. It's part of the general moral consensus that it is ok to capture and kill animals when we have a need. And scientific knowledge is our most pressing need in the modern day.
Most scientists would be content to leave these squids alone if we didn't need the knowledge that we can gain from studying them.
But we do, and that's that.
Re: Why not leave the poor squid alone? (Score:3)
You know this. I know this.
But don't underestimate the quantity of seemingly intelligent people out there who have absolutely no idea how the modern world was made, how nasty, brutish, and short the pre-modern existence was, and how scientific and technical knowledge isn't mana that falls from heaven into the heads of wizards who know the right incantations to speak.
A related phenomenon is the seemingly wide-spread belief that we are in a post-scarcity economy (and always have been), and that greed and evil
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A related phenomenon is the seemingly wide-spread belief that we are in a post-scarcity economy
This is closer to the truth than a lot of people realize though. It's provable that the only reason we can't have a 3-day workweek with the same pay right now is so that top earners and the ownership class can benefit from far worse inequality than existed in the early '70s. So since the New Deal era, we've improved productivity so massively that we've made it about 40% closer to a Star Trek economy (FAL(G)SC?) being feasible, and none of that capacity has benefitted the average worker in half a century.
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While the first world does benefit from exploiting the third for cheap labor, it hasn't really been benefiting those third world workers either, the narrative of third-world workers being lifted out of poverty is built on poverty lines set extremely low, which often get lowered when the stats start to look bad:
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
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You know this. I know this.
But don't underestimate the quantity of seemingly intelligent people out there who have absolutely no idea how the modern world was made, how nasty, brutish, and short the pre-modern existence was, and how scientific and technical knowledge isn't mana that falls from heaven into the heads of wizards who know the right incantations to speak.
Try and remember that religion is still here to remind us of those incantations that are still spoken today. By intelligent scientists and medical doctors praying to Gods. If anything it helps explain the unexplainable, which also still exists today.
A related phenomenon is the seemingly wide-spread belief that we are in a post-scarcity economy (and always have been), and that greed and evil alone are now (and have always been) the sole causes of the more distasteful chapters of our history.
If you don't think scarcity exists, then block Chinese import trade in the US and see how quickly Just In Time logistics empties store shelves everywhere. Blow a hurricane through an area and see how plentiful the resources are for water, plywood, or even toi
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"The idea that if you don't clearcut the forest, you starve, or that if you don't kill the guy from the next tribe over, he will kill you in a fight for survival, is foreign to people who think electricty comes from the wall outlet and milk comes from the carton."
But you don't make that mistake because you're too smart, right?
It couldn't possibly be that someone understands where milk and electricity come from BUT also realizes that you don't need to murder your neighbor before he murders you. It's almost
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For some, utter selfishness means they can never see anything as more than a zero sum game, that tolerating others means personal cost to themselves.
This seems to have become a nearly universal problem in modern America. Nobody wants to hear anything they don't absolutely 100% already agree with. And hearing something other can throw people into violent fits of rage. I remember a time when being confronted by something you didn't agree with meant you could have an interesting conversation with someone, and perhaps walk away with a perspective you didn't have before, even if you couldn't agree with that perspective. We seem to have lost that ability some
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In some cases, differences of opinion have some very serious consequences to one's life.
For example, one person's opinion that abortion should be illegal means that someone else must carry a baby to term even if they don't want to. One person's belief that they are entitled to protection means that someone else must go murder until murdered when a threat emerges. There are more examples that are so poignant that even mentioning them at all will instantly get me modded troll (if the ones I have already men
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In some cases, differences of opinion have some very serious consequences to one's life.
For example, one person's opinion that abortion should be illegal means that someone else must carry a baby to term even if they don't want to. One person's belief that they are entitled to protection means that someone else must go murder until murdered when a threat emerges. There are more examples that are so poignant that even mentioning them at all will instantly get me modded troll (if the ones I have already mentioned are not enough).
These beliefs evoke really strong emotions because of their direct impact on the individual. Discussions about them are felt to be battles of freedom, and quite unlike a philosophical discussion about something ephemeral like whether or not numbers are real.
So, with so much at stake, it is hard to maintain composure and objectivity. Online platforms like this one grant anonymity to the dialogue, thus further eliminating incentives to remain civil.
And on top of all that, we have Russian trolls voicing extreme positions just to fan the flames.
I wonder how we will adapt to this.
I don't disagree with your basic premise. But there's also been a softening of emotions over the last few decades preparing us for this little moment where literally *EVERYTHING* is jihad worthy. Used to be you hear somebody say something you disagree with you had the options of walking away, or politely trying to engage in conversation. Now? Everything is worthy of war.
The desire to smack-down any difference of opinion has also escalated. The abortion thing shouldn't be an issue in a modern country, but we
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I think a part of the problem is that we equate the accumulation of money as being productive, poor as unproductive. Unfortunately only one of these two extremes are seen as deplorable leeches.
SPCC (Score:2)
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Cephalopods is now taking donations.
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Aliens are doing this do humans on other planets and nobody seems to bitch about that.
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Aliens are doing this do humans on other planets and nobody seems to bitch about that.
Other plane...if those are "humans", then where the hell do you live?!?
I for one (Score:2)
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The movie potential for a giant invisible squid should be outstanding. Invisible death kraken!
As it swims off all you can see is its victims slowly being digested.
Who made those bad monster movies for the sci-fi channel?
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spy (Score:5, Funny)
Inconsiderate (Score:2)
Re: spy (Score:2)
Do it with a person! Do it with a person! (Score:3, Funny)
It would be so cool!
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My sneaky suspicion is the military financing this so they could produce transparent soldiers. Just imagine... (evil laugh goes here).
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If you want to avoid accusations of playing God... (Score:2)
In soviet Russia⦠(Score:2)
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Cthulhu... (Score:2)
...will not be pleased by this.
idiocy (Score:2)
"Because it suggests that her see-through squid will help scientists understand not only cephalopods, but all living creatures."
All living creatures! Total breakthrough! Probably applies to aliens, too.
Meanwhile, one of the most poorly understood things about squids is how they control their chromatophores. If you make them transparent, you can't study that.