Scorpions go terminator mode and reinforce their weapons with metal
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While we've been distracted watching the great apes and the cephalopods, scorpions have entered the Zinc Age. Won't be long before they advance enough technologically to feel they can challenge us on the world stage.
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This isn't really a surprise, the Scorpions were already known for their metal albums like "Love at First Sting" 
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Pretty fascinating. I've long wondered why life didn't invent diamond for things like teeth & claws. Diamond is just carbon with sp3 bonding rather than the sp2 bonds in graphite. And the fact that sp3 carbon-carbon bonds are (thermodynamically) metastable at ordinary conditions shouldn't be an issue - IIRC, some seashells are built from metastable calcium compounds. You'd think in a few billion years of evolution, life would have stumbled on an enzyme system that could stitch carbon atoms together with sp3 bonds.
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Sheesh, why do they need to be so heavily armed?
Ahhhh now it makes sense.
Also, TIL that people keep scorpions as pets. Ewwweurgh.
https://www.chewy.com/education/reptile-and-amphibian/scorpion/what-do-scorpions-eat
Ahhhh now it makes sense.
Also, TIL that people keep scorpions as pets. Ewwweurgh.
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I don't know, I can think of a few people offhand who would jump at the chance.
Emperor scorpions are pretty common pets* since they're relatively docile and look pretty badass. I wouldn't keep one, but I understand the draw.
*Edit: among people who would keep a scorpion as a pet, I should add.
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Fascinating article - thank you!
But one nitpick:
"Based on their data, detailed in a recent study published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface, there was nothing accidental about it."
Given that it occurred because certain random changes reproduced more successfully then others, I would say it was by accident.
But I suppose maybe Gaia thought deeply about scorpions before intentionally making them this way, or something.
Or being neutral, you could just argue the particular arrangement of metals appears to have an evolutionary advantage, Gaia willing or not.
But one nitpick:
"Based on their data, detailed in a recent study published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface, there was nothing accidental about it."
Given that it occurred because certain random changes reproduced more successfully then others, I would say it was by accident.
But I suppose maybe Gaia thought deeply about scorpions before intentionally making them this way, or something.
Or being neutral, you could just argue the particular arrangement of metals appears to have an evolutionary advantage, Gaia willing or not.
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Maybe it has already happened but the De Beers corporation hunted it to extinction to protect the diamond trade.
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KoshcheiTheDeathless
Ars Centurion
Incoming new Children of Time book from Adrian Tchaikovsky.
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Something to add to our night field trip in two weeks. We usually catch a few scorpions for our field trip in the Franklin Mountains State Park, El Paso, TX. Piortrek54321 asked where the metals come from. My guess is from the prey they eat, mostly herbivores which would absorb the metals from the plants which absorb the metals from the earth.
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I'm not much of a fan of humans, these days. Go team scorpion!
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Presumably mostly from what they eat, just like humans get those same metals for use by our bodies. Either that or https://www.onlinemetals.com/.
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Lol. Downvoted for reminding the engineering demographic how evolution really works?
I guess... have fun with your Intelligent Design y'all!
out.Just goes to show Computer Science != Actual Science.
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It's likely from a similar process as the harmful metal accumulations in species of fish that give us concerns about lead consumption. If the organism lacks a mechanism to excrete the metal it consumes in its diet, that metal will build up. That buildup might happen because not excreting your excess metals becomes an evolutionary advantage, or the buildup might happen because the environment changed too quickly for natural selection to keep up. (See: Fish with lead buildup from pollutants.)
I'd be equally interested to see what the metal concentrations look like throughout the lifespan of the scorpions.
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I think your downvotes are more because your nitpick is kind of missing the point. I would hazard to guess that there's a general understanding among the people reading this article on Ars that when we say "not accidental" it's meant that it's not something that's just happened recently because of increased pollutants or some other fluke and rather that the metal accumulation in different parts of the scorpions' bodies is the result of evolutionary processes at work.Lol. Downvoted for reminding the engineering demographic how evolution really works?
I guess... have fun with your Intelligent Design y'all!
Just goes to show Computer Science != Actual Science.
The likely second round of downvotes you'll experience will just be because you're being needlessly condescending in your reply to your own post.
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Yeah, I've been wondering if they hatch with these metals or if they start picking them up as they begin hunting.
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Praetorian
Some gall wasps also have zinc at the tips of their ovipositors. Handy for drilling through tough plant tissue.
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Or it could be that you are focusing on the random part and ignoring the evolutionary advantage part. That's when it stops being an accident and becomes an adaptation.Lol. Downvoted for reminding the engineering demographic how evolution really works?
I guess... have fun with your Intelligent Design y'all!
Just goes to show Computer Science != Actual Science.
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I doubt this is a similar mechanism to heavy metal poisoning. None of the three metals are considered heavy metal. They are all widely used in "normal" biological processes, usually at the active sites of enzymatic processes.
I would be very interested in the biological processes involved in the deposition of these metals, and get an idea of how this evolved.
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Evolution isn’t random, it’s directed. The specific mutations may be random, but selection of new traits that persist is done only for those that improve reproduction outcomes.
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When I lived in Arizona I was glad I had cats as pets because the bark scorpions have a nasty sting and their brown bodies blend in the natural rock yards, and on stone house flooring, so I seldom saw them.
But my cats caught them every time, including once when walking across brown stone kitchen floor, only to have cat dart in front of where I was about to step to smack a scorpion out of my way.
That’s when I bought a UV flashlight and opened my eyes to the large number of them lurking about my house and yard.
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Exactly--that's why I want to know more--because it's weird to me that something like zinc or iron would be kicking around in relatively large quantities without being actively metabolized in some way. I'm not in a position to do a whole lot of research about scorpions (being, thankfully for my delicate fleshy parts, not in active scorpion territory), but I'd be interested to see how this goes further.
(I'll admit: Heavy science nerditude runs deep in my veins. It comes with being a math/science teacher.)
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Now I'm wondering how much iron, zinc, and manganese humans excrete. I know we recycle iron by breaking down blood cells but we can't be scavenging all of it or we wouldn't need to keep ingesting iron. I don't know what happens to zinc and manganese.
Evolution does funny things with metabolic processes; I've read we're the only primate that doesn't break uric acid down and so that's why it can hang around and give us gout or kidney stones. I've also read that uric acid is an antioxidant, which makes me wonder if we stopped breaking it down because it reduces premature deaths from cancers stemming from cooking food. This is just speculation that I'm in no way qualified to engage in, but maybe there's something like that going on with scorpions. Some that were inefficient at excreting these elements ended up with deposits in their chitin that made it stronger...
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There are several pathways to excrete excess metals, usually through the gut via several metal specific mechanisms. Most of these are fairly well (manganese) to extremely well (sodium) characterized.
Iron has an active process through the gut. Disruption of a gene in this process can lead to a chronic disease called hemochromatosis, excess iron collection in tissue with the liver the main driver of symptoms. There is speculation that this may have been an adaptation to a low iron diet in the paleolithic, and why it is fairly prevalent for a disease causing mutation.
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Praetorian
We're also one of the few mammals that can't make our own vitamin C.
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Next research : put the scorpions on a high-metal diet and see where they use the excess atoms available to them.
Also referred to in the future alien history books as "humanity's last research"
Also referred to in the future alien history books as "humanity's last research"
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This is a good question.
Metals exist across the organic food chain in tiny quantities. For example, a plant draws metal ions from the soil, and then an insect would eat the plant, and then a scorpion would eat the insect.
If you search for “metal in plants” or “metal in insects” you will find plenty of research on different aspects of the topic.
Remember to filter for topic. Your question is not related to how heavy metals like mercury might enter the food chain through pollutants, but rather how naturally occurring metal enters the food chain.
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