is everyone just in a mass psychosis now or what

Have you been dropped or otherwise penalized by your family doctor after visiting a walk-in in Ontario? We'd love to hear from you for a story for @TorontoStar. Please shoot me a DM or email at kjiang@thestar.ca if interested, thanks!

A mind-blowing paper has come out today in @Nature In 2016, JC Venter Institute scientists trimmed a bacterial genome to its barest minimum required for life to synthesize what they called a "minimal genome" (science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…). Today, a group of scientists from Indiana University reports how that minimal genome evolved over 2000 generations in comparison to the non-minimal genome. The authors found that even when you reduce a bacterial genome to its absolute minimum where every nucleotide matters, the genome undergoes mutational events generation after generation as much as the non-minimal genome. One simply cannot stop the evolution. Just over 300 days of evolution (equivalent to 40,000 years in humans) the minimal cell has gained everything it lacked in fitness on day one in comparison to the non-minimal cell. When comparing the evolved traits between the minimal and non-minimal cells, the scientists found something striking. The evolutionary process increased the cell size of non-minimal cells but not that of the minimal cell. But that is not the striking part. The scientists were able to identify the key mutation that resulted in cell size evolution. And it turned out that the mutation that helped the non-minimal cells to grow bigger is the same that helped the minimal cells to stay smaller. Growing bigger had a survival advantage for non-minimal cells and not growing bigger had a survival advantage for minimal cells. So, the mutation had a context-dependent effect. This just demonstrates that the evolutionary effects on traits have no absolute direction. All that matter is what is beneficial for the organism's survival. The conclusion of the paper is metaphorically a quote from the Jurassic Park movie: “Listen, if there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but . . . life finds a way". (scienmag.com/artificial-cell…) nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

Canada's🇨🇦population will hit 40 million today and is growing at a 'record-setting pace.' The vast majority of this growth was spurred by international migration, according to an update by Statistics Canada, by @crudelykevin thestar.com/news/canada/2023… via @torontostar

Google's new AI Search Function is going to be revolutionary. A huge leap in convenience for users but also more control of what content we see (and how we see it) in the hands of one firm. Great article by @crudelykevin in the Toronto Star: thestar.com/business/technol…

Meet gekko mizoramensis, a new species of paragliding gecko just discovered in India. It uses flaps of skin on its body, limbs and tail to paraglide from tree to tree 🦎

A YouTuber and pilot has pleaded guilty to deliberately crashing his plane in California and destroying the wreckage in late 2021 as a sponsorship stunt. Very 🤯 story by @crudelykevin thestar.com/news/world/2023/…

U of T's @acceleration_c just got a $200M grant - one of the largest ever in Canada - to build self-driving labs and automate chemistry. "This is viewed as critical for Canada to remain competitive on the international stage,” a source told me. My latest: thestar.com/news/canada/2023…

This week I learned ⁦@VentureBeat⁩ is using AI to help write and edit articles, and has decided not to disclose this on stories to readers. It bothers me — not just bc I’m a journalist, but bc I’m a reader, too. Curious how others feel about this. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…