> In this symbiotic relationship, bacteria take up real estate on the spider’s exoskeletons, and in return, the microbes convert carbon-rich methane and oxygen into sugars and fats the spiders can eat
Doing all the work. Microbes get no respect.
But also, can we attach these to natural methane producers? (Eg decomposing stuff or cows)
Maybe not in the mainstream?! But for many years people have had jobs specifically trying to get microbes to do useful work for us. [0]
Look up key terms like "directed evolution" in microbial research - which to me sounds like a fancy phrase for "breeding". But when breeding cycles can be measured in minutes across millions of units for something so small we can't see it... it kind of is a different thing so I guess it's fair to differentiate it.
I think you're unfairly dismissing the massive amount of nanotech R&D and energy it takes to develop and operate the bazillion-unit cooperative mobile megafortress those bacteria are happily renting.
I would guess that they've evolved for the conditions around the seafloor, so rotting trash piles or cow stomachs might be a stretch (though cows might welcome some extra sugars, unlike garbage - though I am sure some other microbes could step in there).
> Even if 80% of the population are eaten (by the spiders), it’s worth it for the 20% to keep surviving and reproducing.
Some symbiosis
Float away from the methane and die, or if lucky attach to a predator that lives in the methane that will harvest you for consumption but not before you reproduce
Most people can get on board with jumping spiders. Big eyes, recognizable behavior, fuzz like fur, aspect ratios that aren't foreign to mammals. But if they mean knobbly things that look like they came out off the sea floor / out of an alien film, yeah, I'll grant them that they have a special skill if they can find those cute.
Lots of fears are visceral, but even if we were to allow only verbalizable fears, one could imagine the arachnophobes thinking "what if this tiny spider burrows through my eyes or ears and lays eggs inside my brain, and then all the baby spiders stream out of my mouth and nostrils"
I love spiders.. they're like mini steampunk machines.. powered by what is effectively hydraulics. (that why their legs curl up when they die.. the loss of hydraulic pressure)
This reminds me of a thought about veterinarians. What kind of person would be a veterinarian? A good portion of the job is putting down animals and treating suffering animals that can't speak. Either the vet is a psycho or a pure heart who can tank trauma all day long. I find suffering non human animals to be more traumatic as they can't speak, just emote. Anyway, thank goodness for vets.
It’s not quite that bad. My brother was a veterinarian and in his case, it was very much a vocation thing: he knew he wanted to be a veterinarian by the time he was maybe 10 or 11 and took a remarkably direct route there. The vast majority of the work was fairly routine care, and he had a unique gift for connecting with animals (most of his early career he did house call veterinary work and so many clients would talk about how their cat or dog was terrified of strangers but would just climb into his lap and let him do whatever he needed to do to care for the animal, whether it was trimming nails, examining teeth, taking blood or anything else). Euthanasia was something that he felt, but was able to get through for the other aspects of the job.
I have an ex who became a vet (kind of a surprise in that when we were dating she was an artist) and she has a house call practice with a lot of her work being euthanasia. I don’t know how she can manage that emotionally, but I’d like to believe she’s not a psycho even if she was the one who ended the relationship.
> In this symbiotic relationship, bacteria take up real estate on the spider’s exoskeletons, and in return, the microbes convert carbon-rich methane and oxygen into sugars and fats the spiders can eat
Doing all the work. Microbes get no respect.
But also, can we attach these to natural methane producers? (Eg decomposing stuff or cows)
> Doing all the work. Microbes get no respect.
Maybe not in the mainstream?! But for many years people have had jobs specifically trying to get microbes to do useful work for us. [0]
Look up key terms like "directed evolution" in microbial research - which to me sounds like a fancy phrase for "breeding". But when breeding cycles can be measured in minutes across millions of units for something so small we can't see it... it kind of is a different thing so I guess it's fair to differentiate it.
[0] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2403585121
> Doing all the work. Microbes get no respect.
I think you're unfairly dismissing the massive amount of nanotech R&D and energy it takes to develop and operate the bazillion-unit cooperative mobile megafortress those bacteria are happily renting.
The real question is did they build it using agile or waterfall?
test driven development!
Obviously, it was good ol' trial-and-error. Or rather, trial-and-the-least-error.
I would guess that they've evolved for the conditions around the seafloor, so rotting trash piles or cow stomachs might be a stretch (though cows might welcome some extra sugars, unlike garbage - though I am sure some other microbes could step in there).
[dead]
> methane-powered sea spiders on the ocean floor
Most steam-punk phrase I've heard in a good while.
Thermophiles living near hydrothermal vents are the real "steam"-punk
>Methane-powered sea spiders: Diverse, epibiotic methanotrophs serve as a source of nutrition for deep-sea methane seep Sericosura
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2501422122
How do they breathe? That's what I'm wondering.
They exchange gases through pores in the skin--a fairly common process for things with cuticles
https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/221/8/jeb177568/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutaneous_respiration
> Even if 80% of the population are eaten (by the spiders), it’s worth it for the 20% to keep surviving and reproducing.
Some symbiosis
Float away from the methane and die, or if lucky attach to a predator that lives in the methane that will harvest you for consumption but not before you reproduce
“Just like you would eat eggs for breakfast, the sea spider grazes the surface of its body, and it munches all those bacteria for nutrition,”
I don't of anyone in history that had chicken eggs growing on their skin.
Yeah, that phrase sounds like it was written by an alien not particularly familiar with eating habits on Earth…
Nobody specified that these were _chicken_ eggs. Though that thought leads me in two different directions, neither of which is fit for polite company.
Luxury caviar-based face creams
>enriched with caviar extract
https://imgur.com/a/QAxGdP3
I hope the notion of methane mining the ocean floor never takes off.
[dead]
Who would study sea spiders? You'd have to look at and think about sea spiders all day. That's terrifying.
People who are not terrified of spiders, of course.
Arachnophobia (even the mild variety) is not universal. I know some people who think spiders are cute. It takes all kinds, I guess.
Most people can get on board with jumping spiders. Big eyes, recognizable behavior, fuzz like fur, aspect ratios that aren't foreign to mammals. But if they mean knobbly things that look like they came out off the sea floor / out of an alien film, yeah, I'll grant them that they have a special skill if they can find those cute.
I wasn't afraid of spiders until this week https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/yyk8cb/known_as_the_w...
Freaky, except they're only a few millimetres in size and considered harmless to humans.
It would be hard for a spider of medically significant size to suck down their exoskeleton like that.
Lots of fears are visceral, but even if we were to allow only verbalizable fears, one could imagine the arachnophobes thinking "what if this tiny spider burrows through my eyes or ears and lays eggs inside my brain, and then all the baby spiders stream out of my mouth and nostrils"
Nope jumping spiders are the worst kind. So are big fuzzy spiders.
They're not insectlike, but in some weird uncanny valley between insect and mammal.
And they can JUMP onto you.
Nope nope nope.
I love spiders.. they're like mini steampunk machines.. powered by what is effectively hydraulics. (that why their legs curl up when they die.. the loss of hydraulic pressure)
This reminds me of a thought about veterinarians. What kind of person would be a veterinarian? A good portion of the job is putting down animals and treating suffering animals that can't speak. Either the vet is a psycho or a pure heart who can tank trauma all day long. I find suffering non human animals to be more traumatic as they can't speak, just emote. Anyway, thank goodness for vets.
It’s not quite that bad. My brother was a veterinarian and in his case, it was very much a vocation thing: he knew he wanted to be a veterinarian by the time he was maybe 10 or 11 and took a remarkably direct route there. The vast majority of the work was fairly routine care, and he had a unique gift for connecting with animals (most of his early career he did house call veterinary work and so many clients would talk about how their cat or dog was terrified of strangers but would just climb into his lap and let him do whatever he needed to do to care for the animal, whether it was trimming nails, examining teeth, taking blood or anything else). Euthanasia was something that he felt, but was able to get through for the other aspects of the job.
I have an ex who became a vet (kind of a surprise in that when we were dating she was an artist) and she has a house call practice with a lot of her work being euthanasia. I don’t know how she can manage that emotionally, but I’d like to believe she’s not a psycho even if she was the one who ended the relationship.
Know thy enemy.
Wouldn't it be "thine" enemy?
this is correct, because "enemy" starts with a vowel, but it's a fairly gratuitous translation either way, since "know your enemy" comes from Sun Tzu