(Press-News.org) A team of scientists has combined embryological observations, genetic sequencing, and supercomputing to determine that a group of small disk-shaped animals that were once thought to represent a new class of animals are actually starfish that have lost the large star-shaped, adult body from their life cycle.
In a paper for the journal Systematic Biology (sysbio.oxfordjournals.org), Daniel Janies, Ph.D., a computational biologist in the department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University (OSU), leveraged computer systems at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) to help support his contention that class-level status of Xyloplax does not reflect their evolutionary history.
"Although Xyloplax does not represent a new class, it an even more interesting animal now because it represents a rare example of how natural selection can shape the whole the life cycle," he explained. "By omitting the large adult stage, Xylopax found how to make a living in the nooks and crannies of sunken timbers on the deep-sea floor."
Janies collaborated on the paper with co-authors Janet R. Voight, Ph.D., in the department of Zoology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and Marymegan Daly, Ph.D., in the department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at Ohio State.
Janies and his colleagues are examining echinoderms – starfish, sea urchins and their close relatives – as part of a study for the United States' National Science Foundation's Assembling the Tree of Life project. Several OSU scientists, including Janies and Daly, have won these grants, typically valued at $3 million over five years, to better understand the interrelationships of all forms of life (http://echinotol.org).
As tree-of-life analyses are computationally difficult, the current project is enabled by the computational muscle of OSC's flagship system, the 9,500-node IBM 1350 Opteron "Glenn Cluster."
"Last year, OSC deployed a $4 million expansion to the Glenn Cluster with a specific focus on supporting researchers, like Drs. Janies and Daly, in Ohio's growing biosciences sector," said Ashok Krishnamurthy, interim co-executive director of OSC. "The center provides a world-class computing environment for amazing bioscience research projects at places like OSU's Department of Biomedical Informatics, the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic."
The researchers examined both genetic and anatomical data to support their hypothesis, comparing Xyloplax with a total of 86 species representing major lineages of the five living classes of echinoderms (sea cucumbers, sea urchins, starfish, brittle stars, and sea lilies). For accurate comparisons, they applied several analytical methods to search for the shared mutations and changes in anatomy among the lineages.
The results describe the relationships in a phylogenetic tree representing the best-supported hypothesis on how Xyloplax evolved from other echinoderms. Phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary relationships and changes among various biological species as they evolve from a common ancestor.
Prior to this study, molecular investigations of Xyloplax were limited, because specimens in two early collections in the 1980s were fixed in a solution which degrades DNA. Voight recently collected specimens of Xyloplax in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and carefully preserved them in ethanol. From these specimens, Daly was able to sequence several genes for Xyloplax. The newer specimens of Xyloplax also included several brooding females containing embryos, providing Janies with an unprecedented view of the creature's early development.
Janies and colleagues theorize that Xyloplax differs from other starfish species because it is progenetic – that is, it has a rare, truncated life cycle that leaves the mature organism with features retained from its juvenile stages. For example, the arms of a starfish typically grow axially, like spokes of a wheel, as they develop from juveniles to adults, whereas Xyloplax grows along its circumference, like the wheel itself, and never develops arms.
"Irrespective of method or data sampling scheme, our results show that Xyloplax evolved from within starfish," Janies concluded. "Xyloplax is just a little starfish that has a strange body plan and habitat, so strange that many could not recognize it as a starfish until we unlocked its genome and development."
INFORMATION:
Study: Rare deep-sea starfish stuck in juvenile body plan
Janies applies sequencing, supercomputing to correct erroneous classification
2011-05-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Atlanta Countertops Manufacturer Craftmark Solid Surfaces Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary in 2011
2011-05-03
Atlanta countertops manufacturer Craftmark Solid Surfaces is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2011. Craftmark is a premier countertops provider, supplying quality solid surface countertops, quartz countertops, and granite countertops with a wide selection of colors and styles.
Craftmark Solid Surfaces was established in April of 1991, beginning as a small fabrication shop. At the time, Craftmark worked out of a 3,000 square foot building where the company fabricated solid surface kitchen countertops, including Corian, Swan stone, Gibraltar, and Craftmark's own trademarked ...
Mayo Clinic CPR efforts successful on man with no pulse for 96 minutes
2011-05-03
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- By all counts, the 54-year-old man who collapsed on a recent winter night in rural Minnesota would likely have died. He'd suffered a heart attack, and even though he was given continuous CPR and a series of shocks with a defibrillator, the man was without a pulse for 96 minutes. But this particular instance of cardiac arrest (http://www.mayoclinic.org/heart-attack/), reported first in Mayo Clinic Proceedings (http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com) online, turned out to be highly unusual: "The patient made a complete recovery following prolonged pulselessness," ...
Animal studies reveal new route to treating heart disease
2011-05-03
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have shown in laboratory experiments in mice that blocking the action of a signaling protein deep inside the heart's muscle cells blunts the most serious ill effects of high blood pressure on the heart. These include heart muscle enlargement, scar tissue formation and loss of blood vessel growth.
Specifically, the Johns Hopkins team found that their intervention halted transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) secretion at a precise location called cell receptor type 2 in cardiac muscle cells. Blocking its action in this cell type forestalled ...
Single atom stores quantum information
2011-05-03
A data memory can hardly be any smaller: researchers working with Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have stored quantum information in a single atom. The researchers wrote the quantum state of single photons, i.e. particles of light, into a rubidium atom and read it out again after a certain storage time. This technique can be used in principle to design powerful quantum computers and to network them with each other across large distances.
Quantum computers will one day be able to cope with computational tasks in no time where current ...
Magnets.com to Include Free Custom Business Cards with Business Card Magnet Orders
2011-05-03
Networking, advertising, and marketing shouldn't have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, with Magnets.com it's completely free. As a leading producer of custom, high quality promotional refrigerator magnets, starting today until June 15, 2011 all orders for business card magnets will be shipped with 100 free paper business cards. Best yet, there are no minimums to qualify, fine print, or strings attached.
Custom designed for free and produced using the highest quality papers and printing, this value-add is sure to save the company's 50,000+ worldwide customers upwards ...
Inconsistent math curricula hurting US students, study finds
2011-05-03
A new study finds important differences in math curricula across U.S. states and school districts. The findings, published in the May issue of the American Journal of Education, suggest that many students across the country are placed at a disadvantage by less demanding curricula.
Researchers from Michigan State University and the University of Oklahoma used data from the 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which included 13 school districts and nine states in the U.S., as well as nearly 40 other nations.
"Overall, U.S. students are ...
Think it's easy to be macho? Psychologists show how 'precarious' manhood is
2011-05-03
Manhood is a "precarious" status—difficult to earn and easy to lose. And when it's threatened, men see aggression as a good way to hold onto it. These are the conclusions of a new article by University of South Florida psychologists Jennifer K. Bosson and Joseph A. Vandello. The paper is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
"Gender is social," says, Bosson. "Men know this. They are powerfully concerned about how they appear in other people's eyes." And the more concerned they are, the more they ...
College students' use of Kindle DX points to e-reader’s role in academia
2011-05-03
A study of how University of Washington graduate students integrated an Amazon Kindle DX into their course reading provides the first long-term investigation of e-readers in higher education. While some of the study's findings were expected – students want improved support for taking notes, checking references and viewing figures – the authors also found that allowing people to switch between reading styles, and providing the reader with physical cues, are two challenges that e-readers will need to address in cracking the college market.
The UW last year was one of seven ...
Tactova Launches RollDoku Sudoku Puzzle App for iPhone
2011-05-03
Tactova Inc. has today announced the launch of their new Sudoku-based logic puzzle app for iPhone named RollDoku. The app, now available on the App Store, promises to be the best Sudoku app ever and features 10,000 preloaded puzzles, each with over 1200 different possible solutions. With it's unique game play, and an intuitive, responsive interface, users will find it hard to put down.
Speaking on the occasion, Dave Whitehead, spokesman for Tactova Inc. said, "Sudoku is one of the most well known and popular logic games today. RollDoku is a unique new concept that ...
Researchers develop device to measure brain temperature non-invasively
2011-05-03
DENVER, CO – Doctors have long sought a way to directly measure the brain's temperature without inserting a probe through the skull. Now researchers have developed a way to get the brain's precise temperature with a device the diameter of a poker-chip that rests on a patient's head, according to findings presented May 1 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Denver.
"This is the first time that anyone has presented data on the brain temperature of a human obtained non-invasively," said principal researcher Dr, Thomas Bass, a neonatologist at Children's ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Cryptographic protocol enables secure data sharing in the floating wind energy sector
Can drinking coffee or tea help prevent head and neck cancer?
Development of a global innovative drug in eye drop form for treating dry age-related macular degeneration
Scientists unlock secrets behind flowering of the king of fruits
Texas A&M researchers illuminate the mysteries of icy ocean worlds
Prosthetic material could help reduce infections from intravenous catheters
Can the heart heal itself? New study says it can
Microscopic discovery in cancer cells could have a big impact
Rice researchers take ‘significant leap forward’ with quantum simulation of molecular electron transfer
Breakthrough new material brings affordable, sustainable future within grasp
How everyday activities inside your home can generate energy
Inequality weakens local governance and public satisfaction, study finds
Uncovering key molecular factors behind malaria’s deadliest strain
UC Davis researchers help decode the cause of aggressive breast cancer in women of color
Researchers discovered replication hubs for human norovirus
SNU researchers develop the world’s most sensitive flexible strain sensor
Tiny, wireless antennas use light to monitor cellular communication
Neutrality has played a pivotal, but under-examined, role in international relations, new research shows
Study reveals right whales live 130 years — or more
Researchers reveal how human eyelashes promote water drainage
Pollinators most vulnerable to rising global temperatures are flies, study shows
DFG to fund eight new research units
Modern AI systems have achieved Turing's vision, but not exactly how he hoped
Quantum walk computing unlocks new potential in quantum science and technology
Construction materials and household items are a part of a long-term carbon sink called the “technosphere”
First demonstration of quantum teleportation over busy Internet cables
Disparities and gaps in breast cancer screening for women ages 40 to 49
US tobacco 21 policies and potential mortality reductions by state
AI-driven approach reveals hidden hazards of chemical mixtures in rivers
Older age linked to increased complications after breast reconstruction
[Press-News.org] Study: Rare deep-sea starfish stuck in juvenile body planJanies applies sequencing, supercomputing to correct erroneous classification