Abstract: Transposon-encoded genes are the most abundant and ubiquitous genes in nature. Their widespread presence across diverse genomes has driven the evolution of novel mechanisms to manipulate genetic information, enabling them to selfishly propagate their own genetic material. Remarkably, many essential cellular functions, including RNA splicing, telomere maintenance, and V(D)J recombination, all trace their origins to components originally encoded within transposable elements. Our findings reveal that the RNA-guided mechanisms of CRISPR and snoRNA-guided RNA modification also originated within transposable elements, where they facilitated their spread before being co-opted by cells for diverse RNA-guided processes. These insights highlight how the adaptive strategies of transposable elements have not only ensured their persistence but also driven the development of key molecular processes that underpin cellular function, shaping the evolution of life at the molecular level.

Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Join us for a talk by Christopher Jernigan, a research associate at Cornell University and prospective faculty candidate in integrative physiology.

There is no virtual option for this event.

Abstract: Like humans and other primates, faces are special visual objects for the paper wasp Polistes fuscatus. These wasps possess individually distinctive color patterns on their face, which they can use to visually recognize and discriminate nestmates. To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying this ability, and compare this to what is known in primate systems I presented a large set of visual stimuli, while recording extracellular activity across the brain. I ask (1) if there are neural responses that are selective to conspecific wasp images, (2) where they are located, and (3) what the tuning features of neurons with highly selective responses to conspecific wasp images are. We find broad selectivity to forward-facing wasp shapes (i.e., silhouettes) across the brain, including the optic lobe. We also find highly localized neural responses in the wasp protocerebrum selective to full images of forward-facing wasps, which have color patterns. We term these forward-facing wasp units, wasp cells. Wasp cells show idiosyncratic facial tuning, tending to prefer a subset of faces or specific facial features in our dataset. Collectively this population of wasp cells exhibited a specific location both within and across animals. Together, these cells show similar responses to more similar facial patterns such that at the population response level neural distance among faces is correlated with phenotypic facial distance, suggesting a population level encoding of facial identity by wasp cells. Despite having independently evolved vision let alone facial recognition, wasp cells show remarkable parallels to the face cells found in primates, suggesting that dedicated circuits with idiosyncratic feature tuning may be critical features of visual identity recognition. Further, this system now provides a key opportunity to study how these tuning features emerge through development and how social experience may shape the key axes of these tuning properties.

Learn more about Christopher Jernigan.