Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth

Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by Tuna-Fish on Saturday June 08, 2024 @03:15PM (#40619618)

Interestingly, warm-blooded animals (including humans!) tend to have simple genomes compared to cold-blooded ones or similar complexity. It's just much easier to get repeatable results during development when you can do all the trickiest parts at fixed temperature, a human can use a single gene to achieve what a frog needs half a dozen for.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by thelastgallon on Saturday June 08, 2024 @04:50PM (#40620099)

Humans outsource a lot to the microbiome. We have to add up all that too!

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by throwup238 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @05:42PM (#40620364)

As far as we know, all complex organisms have an accompanying microbiome of commensurate species, even the most basic ones like marine sponges [1]. Plants nurture these symbionts in their roots while animals do it in their digestive tracts (mostly, both have surface microbes too that do various things too).

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-020-0591-9

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by lend000 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @04:50PM (#40620100)

The reason for this is that chemical reaction rates are temperature dependent, and cold blooded animals need different systems of chemicals/proteins to keep them operating over significantly different temperatures.

I wonder to what degree the competitive advantage of being warm blooded consists of the smaller genome vs. more obvious advantages like ability to stay active in colder climates.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by magicfractal on Saturday June 08, 2024 @05:48PM (#40620391)

This is super interesting! Can you share more info/resources?

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by thih9 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @05:52PM (#40620414)

Moral of the story, if you notice you have to deal with a multitude of states, get out of that swamp first, get some foundations right and then iterate. Applies to both biology and coding.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by idiotsecant on Saturday June 08, 2024 @05:58PM (#40620442)

On the other hand, the human body is super-reliant on very nearly exact temperature regulation. A few degrees can kill us easily. Cold blooded systems are substantially less reliant on pristine conditions.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by thih9 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @06:09PM (#40620503)

Warm blooded systems though can power high energy activities like maintaining a large brain, which could figure out how to get warm.

A few degrees can kill a human only in theory, in practice a human would wear a jacket or seek shade.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by simmerup on Saturday June 08, 2024 @06:16PM (#40620543)

Octopi are cold blooded and smart

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by tim333 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @07:07PM (#40620784)

But they live in a fairly constant temperature environment compared to a land reptile for example.

Update: they do some funky stuff https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230608120915.h...

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by thih9 on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:35AM (#40631137)

> The octopuses achieve this by editing their RNA, the messenger molecule between DNA and proteins.

Lesson number two: if you cannot avoid dealing with multiple states, consider monkey patching. The result might resemble an eldritch horror, but at least it will work.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by simmerup on Monday June 10, 2024 @12:13PM (#40635142)

No wonder they die so young

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by idiotsecant on Saturday June 08, 2024 @11:40PM (#40621843)

A few degrees kills many, many people every year. I didn't say a few environmental degrees, I said a few degrees of regulated temperature. All it takes is a tiny little virus to make your immune system eat itself and kill you with your own heat. That's a very good example of a system that is highly reliant on the right environment to operate properly.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by owl57 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @11:12PM (#40621734)

So, expressing your genes at 37°C is a bit like running your code from Docker image?

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by danielbln on Sunday June 09, 2024 @10:24AM (#40624623)

"Well, it runs on my machine" - some small mammal, ca. 50 million years ago

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by deafpolygon on Sunday June 09, 2024 @03:21AM (#40622636)

So, indication of advanced evolution: outsourcing some of our development to other lifeforms (e.g. microbiomes)

I wonder if someone would take human DNA and all the necessary bits and cloned one on another planet completely alien to Earth: would that human being have a bad time because of the missing microbiomes or will they somehow grow their own (I'm thinking gut bacteria and microbiomes and so on)?

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by LeonB on Sunday June 09, 2024 @04:52AM (#40622967)

A lot of research is performed on “axenic” mice — mice without any biome.

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by robwwilliams on Sunday June 09, 2024 @01:54PM (#40626185)

I do not think this is generally true. Do you have a citation?

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Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth by robwwilliams on Sunday June 09, 2024 @02:01PM (#40626236)

Endothermy vs ectothermy is much more about aerobic vs anaerobic metabolism.

Endotherms can sustain high levels of physical activity for hours and days. An ectotherm is lucky to go one minute.

Nick Lane’s fabulous book:

“Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life” is the right place to start.

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