Oldest Known Gut Is Now Discovered

Dr. Emmy Smith, a field geologist, discovered the earliest known animal stomach in 2016 while searching for fossils in Nevada, USA.

“It was just really lucky,” Dr. Smith explained. She is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and was part of the team that published the finding in Nature Communications on January 10, 2020.

The intestines belonged to an ancient species named Cloudina, which looked like a worm composed of ice cream cones and lived around 550 million years ago, right after the earth became buried in ice.
Dr. Smith and a PhD student in her lab wrapped Cloudina fossils in toilet paper, placed them in a paint bucket, and dashed to their field car. Dr. Smith then forwarded the fossils to James Schiffbauer and Tara Selly Paleontologists at the University of Missouri for further study.

"This is a gut," Dr. Schiffbauer remarked. The stomach runs the full length of Cloudina, therefore it has both front and rear ends. Corals, for example, have a simple stomach; a sac with the mouth and anus in the same aperture.

As a result, Cloudina's stomach appears to be the first known example of this type (front and rear ends) of digestive system in mammals.



References:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/science/fossil-guts-intestines.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13882-z









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Living Robots from Stem Cells. Are We Dreaming?

Most of us are aware of stem cells' remarkable capacity to develop into other cells such as blood, brain, or liver cells. However, did you know that stem cells can be transformed into living robots? An extraordinary research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 13, 2020, shown that frog stem cells may be transformed into the world's first living, self-healing robots. These living machines are known as xenobots because they are derived from the stem cells of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), and the term "xenobots" comes from the combination of Xenopus and robots. These xenobots are projected to have a significant influence not just on targeted therapy, but also on human health and wellbeing. References https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/01/07/1910837117 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/13/us/living-robot-stem-cells-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html https://www.livescience.com/frogbots-living-robots.html https://www.uvm.edu...
Read more

Researchers Found an Indicator of Severity of COVID-19. Soluble Circulating Protein May Be the Clue.

A new study published on April 30, 2020 in Journal Critical Care   indicated that the protein soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) may assist researchers anticipate who is likely to have more severe COVID-19 symptoms. In other words, suPAR may be regarded as a proxy measure of COVID-19 severity. The researchers examined data from 57 patients at Greece's University of Athens Medical School and 5 COVID-19 patients at Rush University Medical Center. They discovered that patients with greater amounts of suPAR in their blood needed intubation sooner than individuals with lower levels of suPAR. This is the first publication to suggest that suPAR is higher in COVID-19 and may be indicative of COVID-19 severity. This study is important not just for identifying patients who are more likely to require immediate intensive care, but also for identifying individuals who can safely manage the condition at home. References https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/study-sugges...
Read more

Kawasaki-like Disease is seen in Some Children with COVID-19

On May 13, 2020, a stunning research published in Lancet   discovered that unique severe Kawasaki-like disease in children caused by COVID-19 was reported in several nations including Italy and the United Kingdom. This highlights the possibility of a link between COVID-19 and Kawasaki-like illness. Although SARS-CoV-2 infection affects children infrequently, a tiny fraction of them develop Kawasaki-like illness. Kawasaki illness, a rare acute paediatric vasculitis, mostly affects children under the age of five. Coronary artery aneurysms are the most common complication of Kawasaki illness. The presence of persistent fever, lymphadenopathy, conjunctival injection, and alterations to the mucosae and extremities is used to make the diagnosis (swollen extremities). The absence of a good diagnostic test impedes the diagnosis of Kawasaki illness, which is most reliant on laboratory and clinical criteria. Ongoing research is attempting to determine the link between COVID-19 and the Kawasa...
Read more