
How did two groups of fish separately evolve genes for making antifreeze? - sohkamyung
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/how-fish-evolved-antifreeze-junk/585226/
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taneq
From the headline I'd immediately guess many groups of fish were living in
above-zero waters adjacent to sub-zero waters containing food. Eventually some
of them experienced a random mutation which made them slightly less freezy and
earned them free food!

The account of the actual sequence of mutations required was really
interesting, though. It's good to see an article go into that kind of detail!

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bitL
Maybe the mutation wasn't really random? I wouldn't be surprised if at some
point we find that the "90% unused brain capacity" is actually doing some
long-term adaptation computations and then uses various signals to put that
information into reproductive cells...

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caprese
We are seeing external adaptive pressures that diminish natural selection as
an absolute, such as in this paper
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4333222/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4333222/)

Its nice that science is able to adapt to new information.

Natural selection needed to be an absolute to counter state-religion based
spontaneous creation.

But its now not an absolute, with worthwhile investigation of how life
experience can make its way into zygotes.

Maybe one day we can even prove spontaneous creation, and learn the process
for that.

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fifnir
Maybe one day we can prove there's a teacup orbiting Saturn too !

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caprese
maybe. the consequences being...?

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Vinnl
Not really relevant, but too much of a fun fact for me not to share: the
partner's name is "DeVries", which I'm guessing has a Dutch origin, and
literally translates to "TheFreeze".

(I suspect its etymological origin is more related to Frysia, though.)

~~~
cbcoutinho
Not quite, 'de Vries' in Dutch translates to 'the Friesian'.

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shifto
No, that would be DeFries.

~~~
Vinnl
Exactly, although the word probably derives from that - hence my remark about
its etymological origin.

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vectorEQ
vries means freeze. even though not used like that specifically, you are right
in your thought that vries means freeze. "ik vries" -> "i freeze".

friesland's name is disputed though between being founded by a guy named
'friso' and that 'Fries' means 'peoples with curly hair' :D - so much for
logic & linguistics :D!

~~~
Vinnl
> so much for logic & linguistics :D!

Which is why I didn't want to go into the _actual_ etymology, because the only
reason it was a fun fact is because the current meaning of the word is freeze,
regardless of what it referred to in the past :)

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misterhtmlcss
I love this stuff. Coolest science to learn and read about. Thank you for
sharing it!

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Agreed. I also want to thank good scientific journalism writing when I see it.
Translating scientific news into a format geared toward a layperson is very
difficult, and I thought this author did a great job. I thought his "thralala"
neologism was great and made for a better read that was also easier to
understand.

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skywhopper
Interesting article about some of the mechanics of DNA and evolution.

But I wanted to call out a confusing use of the increasingly ambiguous word
“partner” here: “There, she and her partner, Arthur DeVries, studied the
notothens”.

What sort of partner? Research partner, clearly. Oh, but with some googling
you can find that they are married, so also romantic/life partner.

I appreciate the sentiment behind the takeoff in the use of this phrasing, but
it inevitably leads to confusion in communication. Can we come up with a
better word that is not so ambiguous? And if not, can we (or at least the
editors at places like The Atlantic) try to clarify what sort of partner when
the meaning is ambiguous?

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dmckeon
Why? This is science reporting, not tabloid journalism. We don’t need to know
the marital status, gender preference, dietary restrictions, previous
relationships, etc. Good writing about science is plenty. And “spouse” is a
fine word if needed.

~~~
Simon_says
I agree with you, but then why bring it up at all?

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Qwertystop
They didn't bring it up.

> What sort of partner? Research partner, clearly.

The fact that the two happen also to be married need not be related to the use
of the word.

