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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Have Sensitive Teeth? Scientists Say They May Have Evolved to Feel—Not Chew
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: A new study from the University of Chicago suggests our sensitive teeth may be an evolutionary leftover that once helped our fishy ancestors sense their surroundings. Researchers studied modern fish with dermal teeth and determined they are innervated, meaning they deliver sensory signals through nerves like our own teeth would. The study supports the 'outside-in' theory which suggests sensitive 'teeth' developed on exoskeletons before they appeared in mouths. Some would say there's nothing better than taking a big ol' bite out of an ice cream cone—but that's not necessarily a popular opinion. If the thought of sinking your pearly whites into a frozen dessert makes you cringe, then you probably have something in common with our earliest fishy ancestors. According to a new study published in Nature, teeth may have originated as sensory organs that helped ancient fish navigate murky waters. 'When you think about an early animal like this, swimming around with armor on it, it needs to sense the world,' senior author of the new study Neil Shubin said in a press release. 'This was a pretty intense predatory environment and being able to sense the properties of the water around them would have been very important. So, here we see that invertebrates with armor like horseshoe crabs need to sense the world too, and it just so happens they hit on the same solution.' Lead researcher on the study Yara Haridy wasn't always looking for ancient smiles—she made the discovery while trying to find the oldest vertebrate in the fossil record. Haridy identified armor bumps called odontodes on samples of the Cambrian fossil Anatolepis. It seemed like there were dentine tubules just beneath the odontodes—a hallmark sign of a vertebrate. Upon further inspection, Haridy realized the tubules were more akin to the sensory organs on crabs' shells called sensilla, although the pockets did contain dentin (A.K.A. the hard tissue that makes up the teeth in your mouth). The discovery sparked a new hypothesis for Haridy and the rest of the team: teeth may be sensory even when they're not in the mouth. 'We've been wondering 'why would we chew with these painful things? Why are they so sensitive in the first place?' Haridy said in a video. 'And it turns out, maybe this is a leftover from one of our most ancient ancestors.' Surprisingly, external teeth aren't uncommon in the animal kingdom today. Sharks, skates, and catfish all have tiny tooth-like structures called denticles lining their skin, making them feel like sandpaper. To better understand whether these external teeth were innervated (connected to nerves), Haridy studied some modern fish with denticles. She determined that the denticles were, in fact, connected to nerves like human teeth would be. Haridy said in the press release that the resemblance between armored fish's denticles and the sensilla of arthropods (like the ones seen in the Anatolepis samples) was striking. 'We think that the earliest vertebrates, these big, armored fish, had very similar structures, at least morphologically.' she said. 'They look the same in ancient and modern arthropods, because they're all making this mineralized layer that caps their soft tissue and helps them sense the environment,' According to Shubin, these early sea creatures would have existed in a 'pretty intense predatory environment,' so the ability to sense the world swimming around them would have been extremely important. The team's findings support what is known as the 'outside-in' hypothesis, or the theory that sensitive structures developed on exoskeletons first and then sensitive teeth followed. This contradicts the 'inside-out' hypothesis that assumes teeth arose first and were later adapted for exoskeletons. 'The more we look at the fossil record, the more we put those fossils in an evolutionary sequence, the more that we see the 'outside-in' hypothesis is likely correct,' Shubin said in the video. 'Our teeth originally evolved as the armor on the outside of the body of the earliest fish.' Moral of the story is: next time an annual cleaning leaves you with a toothache, don't blame the dental hygienist—blame your gilled ancestors! You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
Observer
27-05-2025
- Science
- Observer
This Fossil's 3 Eyes Are Not Its Most Surprising Feature
More than 500 million years before 'The Simpsons' introduced us to Blinky, a fish with an extra eye swimming through Springfield's Old Fishin' Hole, a three-eyed predator chased prey through seas of the Cambrian Period. Known as Mosura fentoni, this creature is a worthy addition to the bizarre bestiary preserved in the Burgess Shale, a fossil deposit in the Canadian Rockies. But the animal's anatomy, described in the journal Royal Society Open Science, shows it may not be as alien as it looks. The first Mosura specimen was unearthed by a paleontologist more than a century ago. Over recent decades, paleontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto have uncovered many more Mosura fossils, which they nicknamed 'sea moths' because of flaps that help them swim. Sea moths were not fish, but they were related to radiodonts, a group of arthropods that dominated Cambrian food chains. But a closer inspection would not occur until Mosura specimens were unearthed in 2012 in a Burgess Shale outcrop. Having both old and new specimens encouraged researchers to 'finally figure this animal out,' said Joseph Moysiuk, who studied the Marble Canyon fossils as a doctoral student. Moysiuk teamed up with his adviser at the Royal Ontario Museum, Jean-Bernard Caron, to examine 60 sea moth specimens. The specimens were photographed under polarized light to capture the flattened fossils' detailed anatomy. A defining feature of living arthropods is the division of their bodies into specialized parts. For example, crustaceans like crabs have different appendages adapted to perform certain functions like feeding or walking. Fossils of many early arthropod ancestors reveal relatively simple body plans. Researchers have therefore long proposed that segmentation took a long time to evolve. Mosura bucks this trend. Despite measuring only 2.5 inches long, the creature's body was divided into as many as 26 segments. 'It's something that we've never seen in this group of animals before,' said Moysiuk, who is now at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. In addition to its wide swimming flaps, the animal possessed a highly segmented trunk at the back of its body brimming with gills, resembling the abdomenlike structures that horseshoe crabs, woodlice and some insects use to breathe. — JACK TAMISIEA / NYT
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A German billionaire cofounded the steroid Olympics. Now he's betting on blockchain-powered uranium
The German billionaire Christian Angermayer covers his Manhattan penthouse with symbols of his favorite investments. On one wall is a graffiti print of the Bitcoin crest overlaying U.S. dollars; next to it is a painting of magic mushrooms; and beneath that, an ancient trilobite from the Cambrian period. Perhaps best known for cofounding a steroid-enhanced version of the Olympics backed by Peter Thiel, Angermayer has made his fortune betting on sectors well outside the mainstream economy, such as crypto, psychedelics, and fossils. Last week, in an interview with Fortune from his apartment in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge, he shared details of his latest passion project: tokenized uranium. Investors are no strangers to commodities as an asset class: gold, of course, is a long-time safe haven, and oil has a slew of exchange-traded products available to traders. But uranium, in no small part due to its key role in nuclear weapon-making, remains an underdeveloped and essentially out-of-reach market, even as demand skyrockets. Just last week, the stocks for advanced reactor companies and uranium miners jumped on a report that President Trump would sign orders to speed the construction of nuclear facilities. For his part, Angermayer is betting on Uranium Digital, a startup founded by the former hedge fund manager Alex Dolesky, which is building a blockchain-based trading platform for uranium available to both retail and institutional customers. Angermayer is investing an undisclosed amount in the company as well as joining as a strategic advisor. Angermayer says that he was searching for an investment in natural resources based on his conviction that AI development would demand new energy sources, like nuclear power. 'Nuclear, and hence uranium, is a very infrastructure way to bet on the AI boom,' he tells Fortune. It just so happened that he found Uranium Digital, a startup building in his other preferred sector of crypto. 'That's how I function,' he continues. 'I always have my big ideas…But I very much believe that's the spiritual, psychedelic side, that you then meet the right people at the right time.' Angermayer started his career as a biotech entrepreneur, cofounding the firm Ribopharma, which merged with a pharmaceutical company in 2003 and made Angermayer millions. He later founded an investment firm, Apeiron, which now has more than $2.5 billion of assets under management, much of it Angermayer's. Apeiron has a diverse portfolio of investments, from Hollywood blockbusters to pioneering manufacturers of psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms. But Angermayer has become increasingly involved in crypto in recent years, such as helping the renegade stablecoin issuer Tether build out its own portfolio of investments, including in a brain implant company and data center operator. Angermayer says that he first heard of Uranium Digital from two of the startup's first backers: the crypto venture firm Framework and the family office of the former head of coal trading at the commodities giant Glencore. Financial markets for commodities like oil and coal serve as speculative instruments for traders, but they also serve an essential function for firms operating in the space, allowing them to hedge against price swings through derivatives like futures. The pitch for Uranium Digital, according to Dolesky, is that financial markets for crude oil didn't emerge until the 1980s, natural gas in the 1990s, and coal in the mid-2000s. They go from opaque markets driven by over-the-counter trades, meaning little price transparency, to having a full financial architecture system around them. 'That's effectively what we're doing [for uranium],' Dolesky says. Because of the security concerns around uranium, the only way to gain exposure to the element is to buy it through facilities called converters, which hold a powdered form of uranium called yellowcake. That means that the process is highly controlled and slow, with little price transparency. Moreover, traders can only buy and sell, as opposed to building out other types of financial instruments. 'There's no way to express a spectrum of trades,' Dolesky tells Fortune. So why crypto? By tokenizing uranium through the Solana blockchain, the startup can create digital exposure to the element, offering traders near-instant, low-fee trading. In this sense, uranium on the blockchain is akin to dollar-backed stablecoins like Tether. At the same time, most users would not be converting between the digital version of uranium and uranium itself, which would require physical settlement and is restricted to the vast majority of traders. Instead, they will trade the tokenized form, with physical holders able to mint more through a complex system of arbitrage that maintains the price. That connects the retail market, which can't trade physical uranium, with the institutional market, leading to price discovery that would be otherwise impossible. Tokenization has become one of the hottest buzzwords in crypto, with venture firms piling into stablecoin startups and traditional financial institutions like BlackRock exploring blockchain versions of money market funds. Still, most emerging products are at pilot phases or constrained to crypto-native firms. Angermayer says uranium could emerge as a tangible example of blockchain's utility. 'I get most excited when something has a real impact on the real world,' he tells Fortune. Uranium Digital is set to launch in the fall with just spot trading at first, but Angermayer says that his main role as advisor is helping introduce the startup to the world of hedge funds and investment managers that they hope will adopt uranium as a new asset class. That, he and Dolesky argue, will help create hedging instruments, which in turn will benefit companies building in the space. 'This will be another very high-profile example of why crypto really makes sense from a natural strategic [perspective],' Angermayer tells Fortune. He says that he's considering tokenizing another of his favorite investments: dinosaur fossils. He even has a team of paleontologists on archeological digs to discover new ones. 'I'm still thinking about it,' he tells Fortune. 'The question is, how big is the market, and how much time do I have?' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
IOL News
26-05-2025
- Science
- IOL News
Discovering a new Velvet Worm species in the Swartberg Mountains
Peripatopsis barnardi represents the first ever species from the little Karoo, which indicates that the area was historically more forested than at present. It is one of seven new species from the Cape Fold Mountains described in a paper published in Ecology and Evolution. Image: Savel Daniels In March 2022, Stellenbosch University (SU) student Rohan Barnard was out and about on a farm in the Swartberg Mountains between Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, flipping over rocks looking for ants, reptiles and other critters, when he stumbled upon the finding of a lifetime. Buried deep in the moist sand below a pile of leaf litter at the periphery of a small river, he found a slate black velvet worm. Being familiar with how rare velvet worms are, he took a specimen and also posted an image of it to the biodiversity observation app, iNaturalist. 'I had a basic knowledge of the Cape velvet worms, having found one for the first time on Table Mountain in 2019. My older brother was under assignment from his zoology lecturer, Prof. Savel Daniels, to collect velvet worms. With my interest in ants, I gladly assisted him in this task,' Rohan, now a third year BSc student in Conservation Ecology and Entomology, explained. Velvet worms' lineage dates back to over 500 million years ago., making it a living relic of the Cambrian period. With their soft bodies and non-jointed legs, these critters have changed little over millions of years, earning them the title of 'living fossils'. Little did Rohan know at the time that he had just found a new species of velvet worm, now aptly named Rohan's velvet worm or, in scientific terms, Peripatopsis barnardi. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ A new velvet worm species, Peripatopsis barnardi, is named after Rohan Barnard, currently a third year BSc student in Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University. He found a specimen while looking for insects in an ancient forest patch in a kloof in the Swartberg Mountains. Image: Supplied. Even more remarkable is the fact that it representsthe first ever species from the little Karoo, which indicates that the area was historically more forested than at present. In other words, with prehistorical climate changes, and aridification, the species became isolated and underwent speciation. According to Prof. Daniels, an evolutionary biologist from SU's Department of Botany and Zoology and one of South Africa's foremost specialists on velvet worms, it is utterly remarkable that such a prehistorical lineage is still around today. After viewing this rare find on iNaturalist, he visited the same area in July 2022 and collected a paratype and another nine specimens for analysis. The results of his analysis, and the announcement of seven new species of velvet worms, were published in the journal Ecology and Evolution recently. Daniels, the first author on the paper, said South Africa's velvet worms are mainly found in prehistoric Afro temperate forest patches that persist in deep gorges in the Cape Fold Mountains 'The origin of these forest patches can be traced to the early Miocene, about 23 to 15 million years ago, when the region used to be temperate and sub-tropical. During the late Miocene, however, the region underwent significant climatic changes, with a decrease in rainfall due to the advent of the proto-Benguela current along the West Coast and two geotectonic uplifting events. These events resulted in a complex mosaic of habitat connectivity and isolation, what we know today as the Cape Fold Mountains, driving the speciation of habitat specialists such as velvet worms,' he explains. Daniels used new mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequencing techniques, combined with morphological analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), to determine that P. barnardi diverged from its most recent common ancestor about 15.2 million years ago. Another novel finding from the Cederberg Mountains, P. cederbergiensis, can trace its lineage to 12.47 million years ago. Daniels welcomes the efforts of citizen scientists to share their findings on biodiversity apps: 'It is thanks to citizen science data that we were able to identify the new species. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every mountain peak has an endemic species. This suggests that in unsampled areas there are likely to be additional novel diversity, waiting to be found.' Most importantly, though, it means that we must conserve these prehistoric forest fragments to limit extinction. To Rohan, it still feels surreal to have such a fossil-like creature named after him: 'It is incredible to realise that I've uncovered a living fossil. It is as if I have found a missing link that we did not even know about. It gives me hope that there is still so much left to discover. But it also makes me worried for the future, that we will lose animals and plants to extinction that we did not even know existed,' he warned. The seven new species are P. fernkloofi, P. jonkershoeki, P. kogelbergi, P. landroskoppie, P. limietbergi and P. palmeri. Apart from P. barnardi, all the new species were named after their places of origin. The results were published in the article titled 'Perched on the plateau: speciation in a Cape Fold Mountain velvet worm clade' in Ecology and Evolution. Why are velvet worms so unique? Like the indestructible water bears (Tardigrades), modern velvet worms are looked on as a separate line of evolution (and placed in a distinct phylum) that arose independently from some long forgotten marine ancestor – probably the Hallicogenia. Fossils show that velvet worms have not changed much since they diverged from their ancient relative about 540 million years ago. This means Onycophorans have been living on Earth ever since what is called the Cambrian period of prehistory. Today, modern velvet worms live on land and are found only in damp, moist habitats in areas that were originally part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana
The Hindu
25-05-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
What is Mosura fentoni?
Scientists have uncovered a strange new Cambrian sea creature called Mosura fentoni in Canada's famous Burgess shale. M. fentoni is a radiodont, a distant relative of today's insects, crabs, and spiders, yet it breaks several rules thought to define that group. M. fentoni shows that even small Cambrian radiodonts could be highly specialised swimmers with advanced breathing systems, adding a new chapter to the story of how arthropods became so diverse. M. fentoni's body is unusually long for its small size (1.5-6 cm). Its body has 26 segments in three zones. A short neck supports the head. A mesotrunk of six paddle-shaped flaps work like propellers for swimming; and a posterotrunk of up to 16 segments is packed with rows of thin gills while its flaps shrink to stubs. Because the gills dominate this rear zone, researchers have said the posterotrunk is a special breathing tagma — a striking parallel to the oxygen-collecting tails of horseshoe crabs. When the team placed M. fentoni in a family tree, it landed near the base of the hurdiid radiodonts. That position together with its highly divided body suggests early radiodonts were already experimenting with different ways to split and specialise their segments. That is, this ability, which later exploded in crabs, insects and other arthropods, may have been rooted in these ancient predators.
