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Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

smithsonianmag.com

31–40 of 54 posts

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#31
post #15

I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.

You should be praying to science. Last time he decided to make a full wipe, that god made a single backup (!), put it on a boat made by an amateur and then even forgot about it. I would trust him my data as much as the next google storage product.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#32
post #13
post #6

even though the picture is not real, that's a truly beautiful creature! to be honest, i would personally prefer blue bees over yellow. there's just something about the color blue...

The color is absolutely real. Many Hymenoptera, and other insects have this coloration. It structural, not pigment, bouncing light around via microscopic grooves and ridges. Fun fact, most Hymenoptera are also very very small, ~2mm or so, and some the chalcid, or jewel-wasps are very often iridescent. Someone just pulled off this same effect with Chocolate a while back. [1] (NTY paywall] [1]( https://www.nytimes.com/…

I know someone who pulled off holographic chocolate - 3D images - several decades ago. The technique is more or less just lithography on a mould.

Turns out people aren't interested in actually eating it. They assume there's some weird coating.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#33
post #15

I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.

You should be praying to science. Last time he decided to make a full wipe, that god made a single backup (!), put it on a boat made by an amateur and then even forgot about it. I would trust him my data as much as the next google storage product.

Well, he was also the guy that wiped the hole planet just to remove one home directory ;)

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#34
post #17
post #15

I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.

We think we only know about 10% of the species on the planet. We're a long way from archiving dna records of them all.

We know about all the ones that matter though. Like the keystones of the ecosystems.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#35

Currently reading The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson. Wanted to read his book about ants but it was not available/deliverable/ebook. So purchased this on kindle. Have read only about 30%. But some of the things are new. I expected it to be a refresher course after a few of David Attenborough documentaries. But some of the things are new. Like how do we define species. A lot of these things are available on wik…

> Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees

I haven't read it, but you should be aware that his theses are highly controversial in expert circles.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most bees are solitary and live in burrows they make in the ground. And only two species of bee make honey.

> And only two species of bee make honey. Not true, unless you mean that humans only harvest the honey of two species.

I'm sure you're right, I was just quoting something someone told me one time and I probably picked them up wrong.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#37
post #10

I was just discussing blue bees with my friend--they're native to Australia. I had no idea they were in North America as well.

It's a different species though, this is the Australian one: https://imgur.com/X1vf3v4 Oddly enough they're solitary, rather than living in hives.

Last time I read about bee's I found that bees range from totally solitary, to gregarious, to communal, to a large number of eusocial colonial species.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#38
post #15

I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.

Yup, the old myth of holocene park... it does not matter if species go extinct as long as they are all saved in our hard disk. Somebody will eventually fix it in the future. Somebody with unlimited life points and infinite money and a planet sized room.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#39
post #34
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We think we only know about 10% of the species on the planet. We're a long way from archiving dna records of them all.

We know about all the ones that matter though. Like the keystones of the ecosystems.

I hope we are building a statistical model of which one is eating which to map where are the missing pieces of the puzzle and direct our focus of research.

Re: Blue bee feared to be extinct is found in Florida

#40
post #15

I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.

I am not sure that we are at that tech level yet to resurrect creatures from DNA. Even if we had DNA, do we need multiple for each species (diversity, male/female and how many, drone, worker, queen (if I remember correctly queen is made just by feeding it with special food))? It is not that easy to recreate living beings, last year we succeeded with simple microorganism. There is an issue of epigenetics and how infor…

Correct, DNA is just one element of a complete organismal informatics, you need vastly more than just the genome sequence to ressurect a species. Relatively simple microbes, or recently extinct mammals where you have a semi-plausible scheme involving suitable host cells and embryo implantation technology are exceptional cases.

One thing to realize is there are significant numbers of species that have such complex ecological dependencies that we don't know how to keep them alive outside of their natural habitat anyway, even if we could manufacture them from scratch. I've worked in labs studying mycorrhizal fungi, parasitic and mycoheterotrophic plants, soil protists, rare insects... Often, even if the species is well-characterized and we have plenty of living samples, the life-cycle still cannot be completed and a viable population cannot be maintained in artificial conditions.

Environmental genomic sampling is relatively easy to do, trendy, easy to get funding for. Conservation biology produces vast amounts of this data. But it mostly serves as an "ark" in terms of individual genes, gene products, limited gene networks, not the integrated individual. We've got very good at collating and maintaining vast databases of this stuff and very bad at stopping the actual biodiversity getting destroyed. Research on "how actually do we keep more species alive in the first place" does not get enough money or attention.

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