SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the how-many-times-did-it-evolve-on-Vulcan? dept.
Why Do Some Lizards Have Green Blood?
A study [open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao5017] [DX] published Tuesday suggests seems that this lime-green blood has evolved independently several times in lizards.
Scientists are now trying to understand how these lizards might benefit from blood that's green. The answer could provide new insights into human illnesses like jaundice and malaria.
The weird blood has been found in skinks that live in New Guinea, an island off of Australia, and its bright color is striking. "There's so much green pigment in the blood that it overshadows the brilliant crimson coloration of red blood cells," says Chris Austin, a biologist at Louisiana State University who has studied these lizards for decades. "The bones are green, the muscles are green, the tissues are green, the tongue and mucosal lining is green."
All that green comes from high levels of biliverdin, a toxic waste product made during the body's normal breakdown of red blood cells. In humans, high levels of a similar bile pigment called bilirubin make people sick with jaundice, but the lizards seem unaffected.
"I find it just absolutely remarkable that you've got this group of vertebrates, these lizards, that have a level of biliverdin that would kill a human being, and yet they're out catching insects and living lizard lives," says Susan Perkins, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
[...] Austin, Perkins, and their colleague Zachary Rodriguez decided to create a kind of lizard family tree by studying the DNA of 51 Australasian skink species, including six species that have green blood.
[...] What the researchers found [...] suggests that the ancestors of all of the lizards had red blood, and that green blood then evolved independently four times, in separate lineages.
Also at New Scientist and The Atlantic.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2018, @03:03AM (2 children)
Go away FBI agent, we don't discuss illegal actions even against the most despicable people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2018, @03:14AM
Not all of them are. Certainly the Red Dresses pulling Trump's strings are. Seek the 11 pointed star.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 17 2018, @02:02PM
Yes, stupid, we do discuss illegal stuffs on Soylent. We discuss Mary Jane on Soylent, which is still illegal in the United States of America, as well as the District of Columbia, it's territories, and possession.
We discuss illegal aliens all the time.
We discuss school shootings, school shooters, cowardly cops who won't raise a finger to prevent children being shot.
We discuss corrupt politicians every day - some who abuse women, some who abuse children, many who abuse their office, and many many many more who use their office to make themselves rich.
When Soylent stops discussing illegal things, Soylent will probably just dry up and blow away.
Oh, what's that? You say that none of that stuff is "tech" stuff? Can you do the (in)famous haiku about encrypted DVD's? You can? THAT'S ILLEGAL!! You can't? And, you dare to call yourself a techie?
Away with you, and your poor attempt at censorship.