How did fireflies evolve, anyway?

[Richelieu]

Charge of the lightning bugs

Attack of the killer tomatoes!

[giblets]

Bioluminescence is certainly an interesting phenomenon, but it is believed that this chemical reaction was not originally used for the purposes of firefly communication. Luciferin is the starting component in the luminescence reaction, and is housed in the peroxisomes of the light-producing cells. However, some experiments and cladistics studies suggest that luciferin may have served initially as a cell antioxidant, acting as a “scavenger” that consumes toxic, oxygen-derived compounds produced by normal cellular reactions and protecting the cell from oxidative stress.

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/m.../evolution.htm

[giblets]

Recent studies of the biological role of bacterial luminescence, discussed in the preceding section, have shed new light on the problem of the early evolution of luminescence systems. As described above, bioluminescence can stimulate DNA repair by activating the photoreactivation reaction (Czyż et al. 2000b). Moreover, this stimulation is effective even when luminescence is several hundred times less intense than that observed in wild-type V. harveyi, as demonstrated in experiments with E. coli cells bearing the luxCDABE operon and the luxR gene (Czyż et al. 2000b). Such E. coli cells produce light invisible to the naked eye, but this luminescence is of an intensity that is still sufficient to stimulate effective DNA repair. Therefore, it seems plausible that stimulation of DNA repair could have been an evolutionary drive for bacterial luminescence. When the light emission of the early luminescent bacteria was very weak, more luminescent cells could repair DNA more effectively. This mechanism could have operated even when the emitted light was still invisible to the naked eye. Thus, weakly luminescent bacteria might prevail in competition with cells producing light less effectively in environments endangered by mutagenic factors like UV irradiation.

Very recent results from our laboratory (Czyż & Węgrzyn, submitted) suggest that bioluminescence provides no advantage to bacteria under non-stress conditions. When wild-type luminescent bacteria (a wild-type V. harveyi strain) were cultured together with otherwise isogenic luxA mutants under standard laboratory conditions, the luxA mutants became absolutely predominant over wild-type cells in such mixed cultures. This predominance might be due to the consumption of a significant portion of cell energy for light emission by wild-type bacteria that resulted in their slower growth relative to dark mutants, thus luxA cells prevailed. However, when the mixed cultures were irradiated with UV light, luminescent bacteria dominated over dark mutants. This may well have been because wild-type cells were able to repair DNA more efficiently in the absence of external light and compete more effectively with the luxA mutants.

http://www.biology-online.org/articl...inescence.html

[DRoseDARs]

****ing magnets.

[DRoseDARs]

Or possibly the experimental chemicals the government puts into our water supply that creates rainbows.

[Asher]

Since this thread isn't being used anyway...what's shakin your life?

You're my second favourite gay Las Vegas boy after Dissident.

[Wiglaf]

[DRoseDARs]

Since this thread isn't being used anyway...what's shakin your life?

You're my second favourite gay Las Vegas boy after Dissident.

Screw Vegas, I've lived in Reno since 1986. Washoe County-4-Life, b*tches!
And where the hell is Diss anyway?

Not much in the year and a half-ish I've been MIA. Got my Associates in Architecture and never got around to transferring to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to finish the Bachelors/Masters. Of course, the economy tanked so getting even an entry-level job in my field of study wasn't going to happen and frankly I'm still on hold there. :-/ Lost one of my two jobs a month later which was totally not awesome as my savings dried up by the end of '09. I'd kill myself if I had student loans or debt of any sort to contend with which thankfully I don't. Not really sure what I'm going to do. I want to try to get a drafting job to at least get some real-world experience in the field and then move to somewhere out-of-state with a decent architecture program, whereas UNLV has perennial problems with its program. Bah, being under-employed is maddening. And ****, I'm now just under a year from turning 30. What the hell happened to the past decade? It wasn't supposed to be like this. [/grumble]

[Asher]

Hang in there

[SlowwHand]

Screw Vegas, I've lived in Reno since 1986. Washoe County-4-Life, b*tches!
And ****, I'm now just under a year from turning 30. What the hell happened to the past decade? It wasn't supposed to be like this. [/grumble]

Let me let you in on a secret. It doesn't get any better. You better grab hold as it goes by and get some of it, whatever that might be. shouldn't be an option.

[DRoseDARs]

Damn you both, you're supposed to post lolcat pictures to convey these sentiments. Both of you need to turn in your Gay Cards now, you're on suspension.

[Asher]

[DRoseDARs]

Put a novelty lightbulb in that ass of his and the picture becomes relevant to the thread.

BukBuddies = Trashy with the occasional treasure. Of course, at least it's not Jake Cruise. Ewwwwwww... Jake stop that, get back behind the camera. Better yet, get out of the room. You're not a DILF. Everyone in the industry wonders how the hell HE of all people keeps getting the hotties. He doesn't even have Bob Saget's "ironic hipness." He must be loaded with cash, or just gets the guys loaded on booze. He's the Joe Francis of gay porn, but without the underaged jailbait.

[Al B. Sure!]

[Asher]

I don't know what BukBuddies is