War in the womb
aeon.co
aeon.co
It's these kind of articles that cause misunderstandings about how evolution actually works. If we, the HN community, are interested in furthering our knowledge bases, we need to stop falling for these pseudo-intelligent reskinned BuzzFeed articles.
Some of the stuff made sense, some of it was (potentially) fascinating, some of it was quite dubious.
These kind of articles don't cause misunderstandings, people interpreting the language as fact, do. So long as the reader understands the language in the article, I see no problems with it. Nothing in the article states that the presented information is beyond theory. It's a discussion of those theories with supporting science thrown in where necessary to drive further questions and discussion.
A question such as "What's true and what's false?" does not prompt for knowledge expanding discussion. We want to ask things like:
* What exists as scientific fact now?
* Is what exists now provable by scientific method or is it still in theory stage?
* What seems likely and/or possible as the next steps?
* Can we test anything in the resulting discussion with scientific method to prove them?
[0] this relates to Kipling -- stories like "How the camel got its hump". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_So_Stories
Not to mention the egg-chicken dichotomy is absurd. There was neither a "first chicken" nor a "first egg".
Single celled protists first developed sexual reproduction about 2 billion years ago as a means of producing genetically variable offsprings. It may be assumed both the offspring and the reproductive machinery of the parents developed concomitantly as life was making a shift from uni-cellularity toward multi-cellularity.
As for mammals (which includes us humans), the placenta, which serves as an important barrier between the mother and the fetus (only letting nutrition pass through), is of viral origin. Placental syncytiotrophoblasts SCT-1, SCT-2 proteins are derived from endogenous retroviruses. Our genome is full of fossils of viral DNA - accumulated over several millions of years. If these viruses had not apt-get install-ed biological chroot jails, we would not have been born at all.. (obviously some other modes of reproduction may have been developed)
Carl Zimmer has some interesting write-ups on this topic:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/02/14/mammals-ma...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/science/12paleo.html
For those interested in evolution of sexual reproduction and "viro-biome", I recommend Carl Zimmer's Planet of Viruses and Matt Ridley's Red Queen.
I agree the article is a bit sensationalist. Look at it in this way: had it been a boring, academic, science-journaly piece, many of us wouldn't have waded through the article at all... Obviously the target audience for that article (and the site) are general science-buffs and not only embryologists or molecular biologists. Personally I think some dramatisation (to make the content more appealing to general audience) is acceptable - so long as the subject matter doesn't deviate too much from reality.
PS: apologies for my broken english :)
PPS: Re: the chicken & egg question - the egg came first because reptilians laid eggs. Chickens, and birds in general, are descendants of dinosaurs.
Also, if your assertion is that this article (which I admit I found fascinating) causes misunderstandings about evolution then your counter statement - "in reality, it was the embryo that needed to adapt itself to its environment" - is guilty of even greater oversimplification.
Just because the words chosen to describe this piece of biology invoke a certain association between words, does not mean what they describe isn't happening. The science of conflicts within what appears to be cooperation is sound, well-proven science.
The problem with these evolutionary biology stories is that narrative always implies as if this "conflict" is somehow conciously driven. That problem is mostly caused by human language, that is not well equipped to talk about conflict without implying some drive.
The author of this article could have put more effort in toning down the conflict tone, perhaps. I don't think that would have been really necessary, but that would qualify as goor criticism. But the facts are what they are.
If not, it's called mutualism or commensalism. Not disagreeing with your real point, just being pedantic.
edit: to biomcgary, two points: first - i was taught that parasitism is by definition bad but actual interactions between species can fall along a spectrum of mutualistic and parasitic (and individual and specific effects may differ). second - it really ought to be moot since these terms refer interspecific interaction, right? I did a little googling before this edit, and yes, i see intraspecific brood parasitism and such... anyway, enough digression from me. I just think it's an overly-clever corruption of the actual concept of parasitism to describe a fetus as one. It's like calling a hill a parasite because it takes effort to walk up one.
If tapeworms released endorphins, would it also not be a parasite?
parasite (noun): an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense.
What's really interesting to me is that in many ways this "adversarial" relationship must actually be looked at as a fairly optimal one as far as evolution is concerned -- after all, our species (and plenty of other mammals) have reproduced and thrived across the world.
I'd be very curious to read an analysis of postpartum depression through this lens.
Further the energy costs, pain, and suffering from monthy periods has a lot to do with the conflict, wolves for example don't suffer nearly as much.
Realistically it's at best a local optima, but robustness and adaptability are hindered but such inefficiency.
A high risk, high reward strategy that works out well for humans that survive and end up with large brains, but terrible for certain individuals for the reasons previously outlined.
Even during fetal development, in which both parties have a strong interest in the survival of the other, there is a range of conditions that would be acceptable (i.e. better than nothing) to both parties. You should still expect replicating gene machines in such a scenario to claw over the surplus: the mother seeking to distribute her resources among all her offspring in a way that maximizes her fitness, and the fetus to maximize its own.
Even during fetal development, in which both parties have a strong interest in the survival of the other, there is a range of conditions that would be acceptable (i.e. better than nothing) to both parties. You should still expect replicating gene machines in such a scenario to claw over the surplus: the mother seeking to distribute her resources among all her offspring in a way that maximizes her fitness, and the fetus to maximize its own.
I recommend "Why sex is fun" by Jared Diamond for a fun read... I hope I have remembered correctly (it's been too long since I read it).
Um..I am not sure about modern medicine part. Most of these women must be in developing countries where you hardly get "modern medicine" on a regular basis.
It's catchy and that's the intension of the author (she wants to be heard). There are so many things to put this number into context.
800 a day, oh that's like 3 Jumbo's full of woman crashing each day. I mean woman... how unfair is that...
But you know, each second ~3 people die _ohhhh noooo_, nobody should die (ever)
When life moved out of the water, different life-forms discovered a way to take that environment away from the water to have their embryos grow: Birds keep the water in eggs, mammals in their womb.
While egg-laying animals create self-contained environments, mammals need much more energy to develop therefore have to be live-fed. So they feed this separate, new creature. Of course they have to protect themselves from them.
They must be there for a reason
I tell you, bro. It's war, you know.
"We/I thought about everything and this is what we came up with (interwined with very catchy words to hold your attention)"
Could you please do (representative) studies and not assume too much?! Very hurting are some of the cause&conclusion sections... very slim terrain (correlation=/=causation)
Contact me at downwindabeam at gmail dot com
>In primates and mice, it’s a different story. Cells from the invading placenta digest their way through the endometrial surface, puncturing the mother’s arteries, swarming inside and remodelling them to suit the foetus. Outside of pregnancy, these arteries are tiny, twisty things spiralling through depths of the uterine wall. The invading placental cells paralyse the vessels so they cannot contract, then pump them full of growth hormones, widening them tenfold to capture more maternal blood. These foetal cells are so invasive that colonies of them often persist in the mother for the rest of her life, having migrated to her liver, brain and other organs. There’s something they rarely tell you about motherhood: it turns women into genetic chimeras.
The whole article sounds so creepy. I never thought you could describe one of the most natural processes in that light.
We're looking to hire a full-time database admin/developer who finds biology interesting, but there is no need for formal training in biology.
This article tugged on my strings in many ways. Philosphically, scientifically, emotionally, artistically. I liked it a lot.
I have a genetic disorder and I have given birth to two children, one who has the same disorder and one who does not. In recent months, I have been speculating a bit about the impact those two pregnancies had on my medical condition. So that little snippet was particularly interesting to me because it suggests that having my second child likely left me with little islands of cells which lack my genetic disorder. I already have reason to believe that my pregnancies made me healthier, if only because of the degree to which throwing up for 8 months forced me to eat differently with my first pregnancy and many of those changes in diet became permanent. But this adds some real science to what has mostly been anecdata up until now.
Tons of natural processes are creepy as hell. Just check out the life-cycle of the Pepsis Wasp[0].
Nature contains the most disgusting things known to man. Most of nature is pretty disgusting in general, especially when observed from up close. Don't fall for the naturalistic fallacy :) [1]
This article is a great example of my point: Although there is a war going on in the womb that wastes resources, there are some very important side-effects that can only come of that war. The embryo is robustly tested for viability, cancerous growth is averted, and the embryo manages to get more resources. These are difficult goals to achieve any other way.
Other examples abound: Our diet is normally a delicate balance between cravings, metabolism requirements, our gut flora's needs, and so many more factors. Probably a war similar to the womb plays out in our gut, and probably with similar tradeoffs and benefits. The only way to duplicate this complicated machine is to let the battle play its course properly. So the question is, how do we do that? One answer is to look to the environment where this system evolved — in other words to adopt a naturalistic view.
Interference in these systems leads to the balance being upended, and problems developing. We even see this problem with software! When I worked for a large company doing maintenance on very old compilers, we would not interfere in the code too much for fear of triggering one of these imbalances. I think they arise because architects through the years are at war with each-other to impart their 'wisdom'. The result is a carefully orchestrated dance between enemy code, mediated by testcases.
Naturalism captures the idea that we just aren't smart enough to tackle these problems head-on. And even if we were, it might just be cheaper to allow the war to play out instead of duplicating all of its effects. It's only a fallacy because once in a while we are smart enough.
It explains things like morning sickness, infidelity, postpartum depression, incest and mate selection. Not a pleasant, happy family type read.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Wars-Dynamics-Family-Conflict/dp/...
While it tends a bit towards the softer and philosophical end of science, the standard of writing is very high and I've found myself coming back again and again for informative and thought-provoking articles. I would be amenable to paying an annual subscription for it.
Reading the article made me feel shame about not being able to clean up this situation yet.