Class blog for sharing and commenting on current events in biology.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Bio Current Event- Cone Snaisl

Grayson Elder
Bio Current Event


Tripp, Emily. "Cone Snails Develope Different Venom for Different Prey." Marinescienetoday.
N.p., 30 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.    
"Predatory Snails Evolved Diverse Venoms to Subdue a Wide Range of Prey Species | University
of Michigan News." Predatory Snails Evolved Diverse Venoms to Subdue a Wide Range
of Prey Species | University of Michigan News. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

In the article the cone snail and its venom is described. Cone snails are one of the most deadly animals in the ocean. They use their “harpoon like teeth” to inject venom into their prey. Allowing this venom to target specific prey is the genes that are very fast evolving. “The fasting evolving genes in the animal kingdom.” A researcher found that in cone snail venom, the variety of neurotoxins, varies by location. Where there is more prey for the cone snail, the more “diverse” the venom is. The diverse amount of venom allows the cone snails to attack a wider range of species.
The discovery, all though not having much impact on our world as humans, has a big impact on the animal world. Scientists are also gaining from this discovery, allowing them to learn more about these animals and what they are capable of. For example, scientists have learned that, “prey diversity affects the evolution of predation genes.” It has an impact on the animal world as well. For example, this article explains just how dangerous cone snails are to their pray. Being able to diversitize their venom, according to where they are, and how many types of prey there are. Although the impact is so little on us, it is a big find for marine biologists.
    I felt that in this article, they could have explained more on how they came across the fact that cone snails venom can be diverse according to where they are. The article also lacked some much needed evidence and facts. But, at the end of the article was another article that extended to this, which was very information, and well written. I used that article with this article to further my knowledge on this new finding.

4 comments:

  1. I think Grayson did a good job of giving background knowledge on the cone snail. Also, I think she did a good job of including its impact on both the animal world and the scientific world. She also gave different perspectives. 1 of the things that I learned from this current event is that cone snails are one of the most deadly animals in the world because I had never heard of them. Another thing that I learned is that they are used in the scientific world and are helping scientists discover prey diversity. It would have been nice to see some more ways these animals are impacting the scientific world and also how they become diverse.

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  2. This was an interesting review for an interesting article. It gave an appropriate summary and background knowledge, it provided a great description on how it applied to our world, and it certainly gave us an adequate review on the style of writing of the original author; Such things are all good when writing a review. Some pieces of information that really stuck with me are the information with snails being one of the most deadly animals and that their existence in their place contributes a major role to stabilize their ecosystem. If I were to suggest one improvement, it would be the style of your delivery. Throughout the review it seemed as if you were only focused on what the article says for fact as opposed to mixing it up with your own opinions as well. Opinions should not just be limited to a single paragraph; they should be throughout the entire review.

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  3. I think that Grayson did a great job reviewing her article. She summarized the article perfectly so the reader could understand the topic but if you wanted to know more you could go read the article. I think that she did a good job talking about how this discovery will affect the animal kingdom. Before reading this article I did not know that that the cone snail was the most dangerous animal, I think that is very interesting. I also did not know that their venom targeted certain prey, I have never heard of an animal doing that before. I think that this review could have been even better if she could have found out what scientists are going to do with their finds, but overall it was a very good current event.

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  4. I found this article very interesting because its almost amusing to think that tiny creatures such as snails are "The most deadly creatures in the ocean." I think Grayson did a good job picking out an interesting article that really caught my attention.

    Things that I didnt know was that snails even had teeth at all. They seem like such harmless little slugs but its very interesting to discover they are deadly animals.I also found it interesting that there genes are the fastest evolving and it just shows all genes are different throughout the species.

    I think one thing Grayson could have done better was summarize the article better. There is a very short and brief summary of the article that could have gone into more depth. Overall this article was very interesting and Im glad I learned about this.

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