(Tuesday, December 24, 2013; Grant Reptile Institute, Florida)

"What a cute little snake!"

Nanamiya Zhiyin gently grabbed the king cobra hatchling in front of him and gently stroked its smooth scales: "Ahh......hh My heart is about to sprout!"

Her body in this world is the Demon King. Although the king cobra's mixed toxin is strong, it is ultimately composed of peptides and proteins, which is ineffective against non-carbon-based life such as demons, so she dares to contact poisonous snakes unscrupulously.

After playing for a while, she put the snake back into the breeding barn, and then searched around for Sora Akiyama. The other party was standing in front of the Burmese python's breeding barn, looking like he was out of the world, and he didn't know what he was doing.

"Akiyama?"

"Ah, Nanamiya, I'm reading Professor Reed's paper. ”

Akiyama came back to his senses, flicked her forehead with a smile, and then reached out a little and grabbed a scroll of documents out of thin air: "Do you want to see the Seven Palaces? ”

"yes, yes!"

Nanamiya Tomoyin took the paperwork from his hand, curiously untied the tie, and unfolded what appeared to be a parchment scroll—obviously a modern scientific achievement, and using an ancient carrier such as a parchment scroll was really unique.

Snakes have many extreme morphological and physiological adaptations, and studying and identifying the molecular basis of these traits could provide new understandings in vertebrate biology and medicine. In this paper, Professor Reid and other researchers used the Burmese python, a physiologically and metabolically adaptable snake, as a model organism to study the life activities of snakes using genome sequence testing.

The study found that when snakes eat, the size and physiological activities of various internal organs are significantly changed, and at the cellular and molecular levels, it is manifested by rapid and large transcription of genetic information. Interestingly, the homologs of these genes in humans are closely related to metabolism, development, and pathology, and this unpopular field of research may provide new ideas for new medical technologies such as gene therapy.

"Seven houses, don't pay too much attention to the details of the word-by-word, but focus on the diagram and its key information. ”

Sora Akiyama patted her on the shoulder, a gentle smile on his face. Looking at this familiar face, she felt a warmth in her heart, and her eyes looked straight at each other, unconcealing the admiration between her eyebrows.

"Charts...... It's here, there are several columns. ”

"That's right. Let's first look at the horizontal level, which is the heart, kidneys, small intestine and liver, and the vertical is organ quality and gene expression. In general, these organs of pythons enlarged to varying degrees after feeding, accompanied by new gene expression. Remember what basic biology is about? Genes regulate physiological activity. ”

"Well, remember, eukaryotic gene transcription, promoters, enhancers and so on...... Well, I think since RNA detection is mentioned here, there should be selective shearing involved. ”

Let's look at the graph that shows that the snake's metabolic rate rises rapidly and then slowly decreases after eating, accompanied by a significant increase and decrease in blood lipids, forming a steep mountain. The latter diagram is about the details of genes, including cellular stress, mitochondrial activity, and so on. I'm not a researcher in this field, so I don't know much about this, and I have to read a series of literature in this field to understand it deeply. ”

Nanamiya nodded thoughtfully. The other side is right, human energy is always limited, and the ocean of knowledge of modern science is inexhaustible, and it is impossible to become an all-round scientist - unless the power of the spiritual network is used to expand the mind, but even the life of the [wise man] will not copy the entire database into his own thinking organs.

"Anyway, the Galactic Federation has a super cluster intelligence of 'civilization consciousness', and there is really no need for a single individual to do this. Looking down then, this diagram of a lot of ellipses stacked on top of each other is easy to understand. Somatic cells share a set of genomes, and different cells selectively express some genes, and this graph shows the similarities and differences in genes expressed in organs such as the heart and kidneys. Some genes are expressed in different internal organs, while others are only expressed in a certain organ. The last few diagrams are phylogenetic trees and typical gene examples, respectively. The former indicates the evolutionary relationship between the species, such as the Asian rock python species and the Burmese python subspecies, and the latter are specific genes, such as those that affect heart development and physiology. ”

After that, Tomoon Nanamiya and Sora Akiyama visited the breeding barns of several other snakes and lizards. Just as they were about to say goodbye to Professor Reed, the figure of the other person appeared beside them.

"I'm sorry, but my wife called me to help prepare for the Christmas party. Professor Akiyama, if you want to stay here, please feel free to do so, anyway, there are not many people in this virtual world. ”

"That's not necessary, we just wanted to talk to you about leaving. Then let's go back first, goodbye!"

"Well, goodbye! Have a nice Christmas!"

……

(Wednesday, December 25, 2013, morning; 2nd floor, Yuta Tomigashi's house)

After waking up the next day, Sora Akiyama goes to work at the institute early, while Tomoon Nanamiya calls Yuta Tomigashi and Tanyu Mori Natsu to meet them in the virtual world and tell them about last night's trip to Florida.

"That's a good idea! Yesterday I went to play games with my doppelganger with Liuhua. ”

Unlike Yuta Tomigashi, the little bird Yurouka seemed more interested in snakes: "Oh! Mutant Warcraft Python! When will you take me to see it, Sophia?"

"Haha! Of course no problem! Professor Reed is worried that no one will help!" Nanamiya Tomoin said this, looking at Dansheng Gu Mori Xia, "What does Mori-sama think? The Everglades are rich in medicinal plant resources, and there are all kinds of wild animals!"

When the other party heard this, his face changed, his body trembled, and he responded after a while: "My words...... Sure enough, it's better not to be better, those slippery and dirty things, it's scary to think about!"

"Although there is a rancid smell on the forest python, the Burmese python is fine, and I also had close contact yesterday, and it feels cool and fun. Nanamiya Tomoyin looked at her with some confusion, "Is Sen-sama afraid of snakes?" ”

"You...... Don't think everyone is as good as you! You and Akiyama-kun are two wonderful flowers!"

"Well, okay, okay, you two don't fight. Yuta Tomigashi came out to play the round, "Anyway, it's very convenient to move in the virtual world, you can go if you want to, and it doesn't matter if you don't want to go." ”

To be honest, Nanamiya Tomoin really wants to go to Florida, but although the visa is easy to obtain, the cost of the air ticket is still a bit expensive, plus the cost of room and board, it is not realistic to make a hasty decision to travel. Maybe we can travel there with Sora Akiyama next summer?

"Sophia?"

"Ah...... I'm sorry, I've just gotten distracted. Nanamiya Zhiyin's face was slightly red, "It's night over there, let's gather after we fall asleep at night." ”

"Well, when the time comes, I'll ask if I want to be together. The other man nodded.

……

(Wednesday, December 25, 2013, afternoon; Grant Reptile Institute, Florida)

After taking the little bird Yu Rokka and Sanae Tsumoru around the swamp, Nanamiya Tomoon and Sora Akiyama came to the Grant Reptile Research Institute again, ready to see what the results of gene sequencing analysis and protein analysis were.

"Compared with the previous genome sequencing results of the Burmese python, the genes related to the snake's body size control have been mutated to varying degrees. ”

Professor Reid welcomed them warmly and then went straight to the point: "We know that animal size is positively correlated with the number of cells, and that the genes that control cell growth, differentiation and apoptosis, such as the well-studied c-myc gene, dS6K gene and ras gene, have a regulatory effect on the growth and development of animals, and thus determine their body size – of course, environmental factors such as nutrition and temperature are also important. ”

Nanamiya recalled the knowledge in his memory and found that although he probably understood the basic principles, he didn't know anything about the specific details. She couldn't help but sigh, sure enough, the more she learned, the more she found that she knew less.

"I have the impression that these genes seem to be a sub-topic of basic research on tissue-inducible biomedical materials. ”

Akiyama thought for a moment and said: "There are many scholars who have studied the cells, organs and individual size control of model animals from the aspects of ontogeny and tumor formation, but the Burmese python is not a conventional model animal, and I am afraid that there are few research institutions doing this research except for you." ”

"Well, this direction is originally unpopular, the United States has about three or four groups besides me, and China seems to have a few. At this point, Professor Reid asked with some confusion, "Does Professor Akiyama also pay attention to this field?"

Nanamiya Tomoin and Sora Akiyama have been together for so long, and they can probably guess each other's off-string sounds after hearing and seeing. Because he inherited the memories of being a spirit in his previous life, Akiyama's research field is highly biased towards mathematics, and the neurobiology part is often carried out in collaboration with other professors and students. Isn't it too much of an exaggeration for a person who has studied five or six disciplines to pay attention to the minutiae of such basic biology?

When Akiyama Sora heard this, he shook his head with a smile: "How can I have so much energy, but I just happened to cooperate with someone to participate in the competition of ScienceIE some time ago, and developed a program that can review manuscripts, at least as an auxiliary reviewer." Early this morning, uh, I mean the ontology woke up and used our program to investigate a little bit of research on the Burmese python. ”

Professor Reed was stunned for a moment, and then said in shock: "Now AI can replace peer review?"

The so-called peer review refers to when a scientific researcher publishes his or her academic work, other experts and scholars in the same field review it to ensure that the author's work level meets the corresponding academic standards such as experimental design and reasoning.

"Reviewing is just extracting basic information from a paper's sentences and comparing it with other papers. Sora Akiyama explains, "Although natural language processing is progressing rapidly, it should not be a substitute for peer review for the time being. ”

Next, Professor Reid briefly explained the results of the current analysis, which are basically based on the diagram of the phylogenetic tree, and there is nothing about cellular metabolic pathways. Not surprisingly, it is impossible to complete all the experimental and analytical work in less than a day, even with the assistance of the virtual world.

After leaving the Grant Reptile Research Institute, Nanamiya Tomoin and Akiyama Sora went to Du Mu's house to play for a while. Although the virtual world generally does not affect the real world, there are special modules that can be used to connect to the human Internet. The two of them plus Lu Qingyi happened to form a convoy and fought in the Summoner's Canyon until about half past six before resting. When Du Mu and the others were about to have dinner, the body of Qigong Zhiyin Yuan in Japan happened to wake up slowly.

……