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I find stick insects and examples of convergent evolution fascinating, so in my opinion a combination of the two makes for good reading. It so happens that such a paper was published last year and was brought to my attention by David Robinson during a recent Phasmid Study Group meeting.

Buckley et al, 2008 did a phylogenic study that involved the endangered Lord Howe Island stick insect, Dryococelus australis (Phasmatodea: Phasmatidae), a species that was previously thought extinct. Dryococelus australis is placed in the subfamily Eurycanthinae, along with the genera Eurycantha,  which has a mostly Australasian distribution around New Guinea and surrounding islands.

The study used two sections of DNA from both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA to compare the relationships between  various subfamilies and genera that were thought to be closely related to D. australis. They found that whilst the genera Eurycantha is morphologically (its body structure) similar to D. australis, they are only distantly related. One of the reasons that Dryococelus and Eurycantha were previously thought to be closely related was that both genera looked very similar and had unusually large spines on their hind legs. Now it seems that these leg spines evolved independently of each other; an example of convergent evolution.

You can read the whole article online with images of the leg spines and a phylogenetic tree.

Reference:

Buckley, T.R., Attanayake, D. and Bradler, S. (2008) Extreme convergence in stick insect evolution: phylogenetic placement of the Lord Howe Island tree lobster. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 16th December [Online] Available at: http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/g622w01455v03763/ [Accessed 25th Hanuary 2009]

The idea of a bedroom/basement laboratory has appealed to me since childhood, and probably has for my scientist friends, so when I read the Rise of the garage genome hackers (McKenna, 2009:20-21) in last week’s New Scientist magazine my mind started wandering back to my time as a biochemistry student.

The article interviewed a few people that do homebrew biology and have achieved some impressive results with modest equipment: one amateur has inserted green fluorescent protein genes into bacteria whilst another claims to have engineered bacteria capable of basic logic functions.

Some of these people belong to amateur organisation called DIYbio which “is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety”. Their blog has interesting articles like gel electrophoresis at home and considering safe storage of reagents, disposing of experiments and general waste disposal.

Would any of you try some homebrew genetic engineering, or have any ideas for interesting entomological applications? With seemingly low setup costs, the article implies equipment could be obtained for under £100 if you have some ingenuity, a home lab could be a possibility for many people. It’s also easy to see potential problems, not just with the experimenter’s safety…

Reference:
McKenna, P. (2009) Rise of the genome hackers. New Scientist. No 2689