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In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life

In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life

danso

Comments (46)

  • ouked
  • 2b3a51
    > "He noticed that the scales were overlapping one another in different directions — in one, they overlapped on top of each other in a clockwise pattern, and the other was in reverse. The fresh eyes of a person who hadn’t been staring at Paulinella for hours identified a curious, distinctive trait. Were they looking at two different species?"I found it reassuring that sketching what you see down the microscope is still part of a scientific practice. Also the 'fresh eyes' could perhaps point the way to a more collegiate organisation of research.
  • staplung
    If you have a decent microscope and want to work on some citizen science that's directly related to the research in this article: https://www.vanettenlab.org/paulinella-consortium
  • ____tom____
    They mention this event has only happened handful of times.This seems unsupported. More likely is it's happened a large number of times, but has only established a lineage a handful of times.
  • Bayes7
    >"The first species of Paulinella was discovered on Dec. 24, 1894, in the sediments of a backwater of the Rhine River by the German biologist Robert Lauterborn. He named the genus after his stepmother, Pauline."How can they say this without providing more background?
  • grantsucceeded
    this revives my recurring desire to get a good USB microscope. Good, to me, in this context:a few hundred bucksable to look at microbesalso able to look at less micro level stuff, like maybe the thing i'm trying to solder or fixis it wrong to solicit comments/recommendations here?
  • tpict
    I wonder what the author thinks steampunk means
  • GTP
    I have an idea on how life could originate in a motel room :D
  • Beijinger
  • danso
  • alpineman
    All they needed was a blue UV light
  • anon
    undefined
  • sva_
    I don't know what I should've expected, but I am a bit disappointed that they in fact did not find these organisms in the motel room.
  • m3kw9
    I thought they use built up gunk from years in the bathroom to discover new species, so they choose a cheap motel.
  • anon
    undefined
  • oofbey
    Why did they work in a motel room? The article kinda implies it had something to do with Trump’s funding cuts, but unless I missed something the connection wasn’t made explicit.
  • sevenart
    non-paywall (perm): https://archive.ph/QpBF1
  • kstrauser
    [flagged]
  • mlkih
    [flagged]
  • realo
    Quoting the article:"The team — brought together, in part, by disruptions and despair over the Trump administration’s freezes to federal science funding — then made an exciting discovery."Apparently this is the new way of life for Scientists under the Trump regime.Sad.
  • codedokode
    So $80 is considered a "cheap room"? How is a person supposed to earn $80 a day to pay for it and have something left?Also, cells can have scales? Amazing.