Here is the concluding part of What I This Learnt Week (stupid typo), and again it took time to narrow 5 or so down to just two, but I think I picked the most interesting ones for you to read about. What a great week for science!

Thursday: Which came first, the Jelly or the Sponge?

_{your ancestor}

Two years ago, I became vaguely aware of a particular evolutionary dispute. A pretty big one, at that. The question is, which organism is the 'sister' group to animals, which one is the oldest extant animal; the comb jelly, or the sponge?

At first it seems the comb jelly was the winner here, but then a paper was released in 2015 showing a more modern result using genomics that actually, the sponge came first. We all originated from filter-feeding sponges.

So that's that.

Until August this year, that is. This time, by sequencing active genes and conducting genome-scale phylogenetic analyses across 27 or so comb jelly species, the results came out that once again, the comb jelly's came out the winner, the oldest animal ever, the one which we all more or less evolved from.

Until November this year, that is. You gotta laugh.

You see, the problem was that all these genomic studies were having problems being consistent. It turns out that this debate really started to heat up way back in 2008 when the first genetic analysis took place on these animals, and the comb jelly came out on top then too. But these researchers wanted to take a different approach. Since 2008, the quality of data models of the genomes of these animals vary wildly. It was time to sort through the trash.

By using an advanced statstical technique called Posterior Predictive Analyses. the researchers were able to describe datasets accurately and discern which ones were of high or low quality. The ones that were poorly describing datasets almost always ended up concluding it was the comb jellies, but the ones that described datasets very well invariably went with the comb jelly!

This is quite substantial in this area of science becasuse the two animals represent very different beginnings of life as we know it; jellies have a nervous system, and their ancestors could have indeed been hunters of... something. But sponges are... well, sponges. Either one paints a completely different picture of our roots in the tree of life.

But hey, let's wait until next year for the next right answer, shall we?

Friday: Uranium > Plastic

Astonishingly, a chemical breakthrough with uranium has broken into the limelight. It turns out that Uranium can go through chemical reactions that were thought to be limited to transition metals like palladium and those on the D-block of the periodic table.

Because Uranium fits between transition metals and lanthanides, another series of elements on the table, it means it could be used to benefit from the best of either side.

What this means, is that new, fresh compounds that couldn't ever be made before might be able to be manufactured, transforming how we make materials, drugs, chemicals and potentially even replace plastic. There's a whole lot of potential coming! And no, that doesn't mean nuclear Tupperware boxes. Then again...

You can read more here

So there you go for this week. Even though it's Wednesday now, but whatever.

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