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Male anglerfish: A penis with a heart + Stopping MS Excel from eating crucial data

#1
C C Offline
Evolution turned this fish into a 'penis with a heart.' Here's how.
https://www.livescience.com/anglerfish-f...ystem.html

EXCERPT: For many anglerfish species, the male's sole responsibility is to permanently latch onto an obliging mate, fuse his circulatory system with hers, then slowly allow his eyes, fins and most of his internal organs to degenerate until he becomes what biologist Stephen Jay Gould called "a penis with a heart." The male gets constant nourishment; the female gets sperm on demand. The anglerfish circle of life spins on.

It's beautiful, we know. But this unique mating ritual — which biologists call "sexual parasitism" — has long stumped researchers. How could the female angler's immune system even allow such a permanent, parasitic union to occur? Humans have a hard-enough time accepting organ transplants that don't precisely match their own tissues, so how does a female anglerfish's body accept a male's (or, in some cases, up to eight simultaneous males) so willingly? A genetic study published ... in the journal Science finally offers an answer: Anglerfish mating is only possible because the fish have somehow evolved away some of their most crucial immune defenses... (MORE - details)



Geneticists throw hands in the air, change gene naming rules to finally stop Microsoft Excel eating crucial data
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/e...ene_names/

INTRO: Geneticists have issued new guidelines in naming human genes – after spending years wrestling with Microsoft Excel and similar software that automatically converts the names of genes to dates. The Gene Nomenclature Committee of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO), which sets the standard for the titles and shorthand labels of human genes, updated its rules this week to curb any further damage to gene databases stored in spreadsheets.

For example, the gene known as “deleted in esophageal cancer 1” was previously designated DEC1 for short. Type that into Excel, however, and it’ll be quietly auto-corrected to 1-Dec. Same goes for other genes with symbols like SEPT2 and MARCH1: they’re automatically formatted to 2-Sep or 1-Mar. These genes have now been changed to DELEC1, SEPTIN2, and MARCHF1 respectively to avoid being mangled by spreadsheets. This is apparently easier than changing the format of cells in Excel.

Why is this all such a headache? The automatic date corrections can cause software parsing the spreadsheets to skip over or misinterpret genes, ruining analysis work. There are other annoyances: scientists searching for particular genes by their name may not see entries that have been corrupted. Genetic datasets are often shared as text or CSV files, bioinformatics scientists have relied on Excel for years to organize their materials, and when it's all brought together: disaster silently strikes.

"There are lots of better alternatives," Neil Saunders, a data scientist who sounded the alarm about genetic mishaps with Excel back in 2012, told The Register today. "But Excel is on their computers and they feel familiar with it, even if they can't actually use it properly. Biologists in particular are reluctant to invest time in learning programming skills." (MORE)
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
Anglerfish sure is a handsome brute.

I’m sure there’s a few gals who know a parasite or two. Guys who want her for the attachment while she does all the work, and that includes everything from holding a job to housework. However this fish takes the cake, It’s the ultimate useless prick.

Maybe it’s just too risky for male anglers to freeload in predator infested waters. Since their sperm is their only valuable commodity then why risk exposure.
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