The jaws of some sea worms are made of an exceptionally hard yet lightweight material dubbed a “bio-metal” that could have applications in engineering.

Perinereis cultrifera is a type of ragworm with a long body adorned with bristles. Members of the species also have strong jaws that enable them to crush hard prey such as small crustaceans or other worms. Remnants of their jaws have been found in the fossil record dating back to hundreds of millions of years ago.

at TU Wien in Austria and his colleagues have been studying this worm’s jaws for almost a decade, leading them to propose that they are made of a novel material. The molecular structure of each jaw combines proteins and ions of metals such as zinc, giving it characteristics in between those of softer biological materials and metals.

Most recently, the team performed more than 3300 experiments in which small indentations were made in different parts of the jaw. The way its hardness changed under this pressure followed a pattern typical of metals like copper and silver. But the jaw also exhibited a kind of elasticity that metals cannot have, says Hellmich.

Finally, the researchers developed a mathematical model of bio-metals, which shows how they might respond to strain in a unique way in which microscopic forces arise from the metal ions becoming arranged into lines similar to certain defects in crystals.

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The researchers were surprised to uncover so much novelty in the relatively simple animal. Performing mechanical tests on the millimetre-sized jaw was really challenging and required hundreds of hours of preparation and polishing, says Hellmich. “Basically, anything can go wrong,” he says.

“The jaws of bristle worms are incredibly hard yet very lightweight,” says at Kent State University in Ohio. “Many industries, from automobiles to aeronautics, are searching for new ways to develop hard and lightweight materials. The answers are provided in nature!”

“Somehow evolution figured out a way to coax a metal-like mechanical fingerprint out of protein-like ingredients, and studying the worm is how we ask what trick makes that possible,” says at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who didn’t work on the study. The long-term dream outcome of this research is to genetically program materials that would grow in biological systems, he says.

Hellmich and his colleagues are interested in pursuing this goal and their team already includes geneticists and biologists at the University of Vienna. “We are asking questions like, ‘If we knock out a few genes, then how will the jaws be different?’” he says.

A 555-million-year-old worm had a predilection for turning right, possibly indicating the oldest known example of handedness.

Although these worms lacked limbs and so couldn’t be considered left- or right-handed in the way that we understand, the development of a tendency to favour one side over another is evidence of an advanced nervous system.

It remains a feature of free-living mobile life today, but until this discovery, it wasn’t thought to have emerged until the Cambrian Period, which began around 541 million years ago.

at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and his colleagues analysed 100 fossil specimens of a small flatworm-like creature, Spriggina floundersi, collected in South Australia over recent decades.

These animals lived during the Ediacaran Period, when multicellular life first became widespread. It preceded the Cambrian explosion, when animal life diversified dramatically and many groups of animals first appeared.

Spriggina lived in what was, half a billion years ago, a shallow ocean and is thought to have foraged on or close to the seafloor, moving by wriggling to the left or right.

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“We have around 50 specimens of Spriggina that are clearly bent,” says Evans. Twice as many of the fossilised worms are bent to the left than to the right, he says. This means the creature itself bent to the right, as the specimens are mirror-image impressions of the animals, made when storms buried them in sand.

“This appears to be statistically significant and matches what biologists find when they study handedness in different animals today,” says Evans. “Some specimens have multiple bends to both the right and left, suggesting that they all could bend both ways, which makes sense if you don’t want to be stuck moving in a circle.”

While the majority seem to demonstrate right-handedness, it is hard to tell if any were left-handed, he says. “I imagine it’s like taking a picture of 100 people waving with one hand today. You would likely be able to count that more people are waving with their right hand, but you wouldn’t be able to tell who is right- or left-handed.”

Discoveries like this demonstrate that many foundational characteristics that are common to a variety of animals today, such as the ability to move around, bilateral symmetry and handedness, evolved in the Ediacaran, says Evans.

In the Cambrian, organisms built on that foundation to become more complex, for example adding legs to move more efficiently, becoming “less alien and more like the major groups of animals we know today”, says Evans. “This is cool because it suggests that, while the Cambrian was an amazing time in animal evolution, those organisms didn’t just come out of nowhere: they built on the foundations established in the Ediacaran.”

“The presence of handedness in any kind of functional asymmetry, really deep into the fossil record, gives us important and interesting information about how these behaviours have evolved and how deeply in time they emerged,” says at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

SpudCell represents a significant breakthrough in the creation of artificial life

New research is finally uncovering why our dogs and cats slow down with age – and how we can slow that process.

So what lifestyle changes can help our pets live longer, healthier lives? In this episode, sponsored by Royal Canin, we explore emerging research exploring the hallmarks of ageing, with practical tips for all pet owners.

Our guests are:

Dr Tanya Schoeman, veterinary specialist physician with Royal Canin
Dr Cat Henstridge, veterinary surgeon and online educator ()

Don’t miss an episode – .

Watch to learn about:

• The importance of the human-animal bond in pet longevity
• How to stave off chronic inflammation in our pets
• Why nutrition and dental health are the fundamentals of keeping our pets healthy
• The barriers vets have to overcome when caring for our pets
• Why prevention is always better than cure.

��

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro – Pet ageing is not inevitable
(02:53) Difference between  chronological age and biological age
(05:00) Importance of the human-animal bond
(11:41) How inflammation impacts the health of our pets
(15:30) Understanding the hallmarks of ageing
(20:34) Impact of the COVID pet boom
(26:01) Barriers to care
(29:22) Can you accurately measure your pet’s biological age?
(33:52) The burden of pet ageing on owners
(38:42) Top tips for all pet owners

Find out more .

READ MORE: Inside the emerging science of healthspan extension for pets

The “SpudCell” is being proclaimed by its creators as a major advance in synthetic biology. Some of this hype is justified – yes, it’s a cell, but perhaps not quite what you could call a living cell. It has 36 genes that allow it to copy DNA and replicate in a primitive way, but it needs a lot of outside help and fails after five or so divisions. That is, however, much more than any other team has achieved, so it is arguably the greatest feat of bioengineering to date.

Created by at the University of Minnesota and her colleagues, the team is now making the SpudCell project open source so it can be developed further and even made capable of dividing indefinitely. Here’s what you need to know:

What is the SpudCell?

It’s a step towards creating a minimal life form whose functions are fully understood. Previous attempts involved deleting genes from bacterial cells whose genomes are small to start with. For instance, in 2016, a bacterium with 901 genes was stripped down so it had just 473 genes. Adamala’s team did things the other way round, starting with just 36 genes. These mostly come from E. coli bacteria, but there are also some from phage viruses that infect bacteria and one for a fluorescent protein from jellyfish to help make the cells visible.

So, is it alive?

No. It can do some of the things that living cells do, such as replicating its genes and dividing, but it doesn’t do them well and it needs a lot of outside help just to do them badly. For instance, the researchers have demonstrated evolution in the sense that when they introduced a beneficial mutation, those cells did better. But the mutation had to be introduced deliberately rather than occurring spontaneously. “I think I would be satisfied with calling it living if it’s replicating indefinitely and if it’s capable of Darwinian evolution,” says Adamala.

Can we really call it a synthetic cell, then?

That depends on how you define things. It is a synthetic cell in the sense that it has been put together in a lab and does some of the things a cell does. But it’s been made using parts of existing cells – mainly those 36 genes – rather than being created entirely from scratch. It could be thought of as an extremely stripped-down E. coli bacterium with a few additions from other viruses, bacteria and jellyfish.

How was it assembled?

The researchers engineered the 36 genes into seven circular pieces of DNA. They made lots of copies of them and put them into a solution containing all the other things the cells need, like the building blocks of DNA and proteins, and fatty molecules that spontaneously form cell-like bubbles. Some of these bubbles ended up with all seven parts of the genome.

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The cells are then kept alive by two of the genes coding for proteins that form pores in the membrane, allowing some small molecules to enter. Larger molecules are supplied in the form of small bubbles that fuse with the cells. So the cell is supplied with all the building blocks of life, because it can’t make any itself.

How do the cells divide?

The team added large proteins to the solution that bind to one of the protein pores that protrude from the membrane. These jostle for space and cause the membrane to bend, says Adamala, which can result in part of the SpudCell budding off and forming a separate bubble of its own. It isn’t an equal division into two parts, and the resulting “daughter” cells have a random selection of the circular bits of DNA, so many lack the full sets of genes.

Why not just put all the genes on one piece of DNA?

This would be better to ensure daughter cells get all of the genes, but it is very hard to work with such large pieces of DNA, says Adamala. “Once we have a genome we’re happy with, it definitely has to go on a single large [piece].”

Why do the cells stop doing anything after about five rounds of division?

The team doesn’t know for sure, but the cells aren’t capable of creating their own protein-making factories, or ribosomes. They have to be supplied with them. “We’re speculating that it is because of the failure of the ribosomes [that the cells stop dividing],” says Adamala. So once the cells can make their own ribosomes, they may be able to keep dividing indefinitely. “I think it is achievable very soon,” she says.

This is all very impressive, but why create SpudCell in the first place?

“We want to be able to make all petrochemicals with living biology, so we can basically move away from oil for all the climate and societal benefits,” says Adamala. Virtually all of the chemicals we depend on, from plastics to pesticides, are derived from oil and gas. Many of these chemicals are toxic, she says, and would kill normal cells that made them. But synthetic cells could be designed to tolerate them.

Could it ever be dangerous?

No. It’s a bed-ridden Frankenstein’s monster that has to be spoon-fed. There’s no danger of it running amok. And even if it really can be brought fully to life, it is unlikely to be able to survive outside a lab or factory. Existing bacteria are a far greater threat.