The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 184 Design Evolution

Lin Yi had a similar idea a long time ago, but the gene editing capabilities at that time were too difficult, so Lin Yi gave up temporarily and waited for opportunities.

But during these 100 million years, in addition to editing the spatial synaptic nervous system, Lin Yi also conducted further research on the ability to edit gene sequences.

The gene editing capabilities of the nest have always been used to edit genes at the macro level. But in fact, the gene editing ability of the nest colony and the source of all the complex functions of the mother nest are a special virus-like microorganism.

While deciphering the spatial synapse structure and deleting its fatal flaws, Lin Yi received some unexpected joy, which made him sigh that over the past 100 million years, he had indeed not hung up in vain.

This unexpected surprise came from a gene fragment of the "Kraken", the decisive weapon of the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group at that time, that is, a gene fragment in its body related to the ink sac structure similar to that of later cephalopods.

Lin Yi has learned that this fragment has been partially deciphered by the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group, and installed on the sub-grade Inkjet Anglestone developed from the adult body of Ordinary Orthogonal Stone, and is used for battlefield interruption.

According to available information, this inkjet hornstone once participated in the battle against the Anomalocaris nests and played a strong disruptive role. However, in the process of dealing with Lin Yi, the emergence of the echolocation system did not play a big role.

But there is one thing that Lin Yi has never understood, and that is how the right spiral stone nest clearly locates its target in the thick ink.

Lin Yi once suspected that the other party had other means of perception, perhaps an auditory system similar to Lin Yi's echolocation system at the time, or perhaps bioelectric induction, infrared and other black technologies that could achieve the strong ink sprayed on the inkjet corner stone. Clearly sense the location of enemy level individuals.

But after the war, Lin Yi looked through the genetic sequences of the "Kraken" and the Inkjet Anglestone, and found no gene fragments related to these strange sensory organs. Apart from traditional vision, there was no additional information. Gene fragments related to sensory organs.

In the final battle before the mass extinction at the end of the Ordovician period, the opponent did not have a level of full-time perception like the three-eyed Hed shrimp, nor did an individual with level of full-time perception appear to cooperate in the battle.

Therefore, it has become a long-standing unsolved mystery as to how the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group, which still relies mainly on sight, senses the position of the enemy in the thick ink sprayed by itself.

Now, after repeated comparison and analysis of the genetic sequences of the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group, Lin Yi finally cracked the mystery - the way the other party achieves the perception of dense ink is really unexpected!

It was not an echolocation system similar to that of a reconnaissance snake as Lin Yi imagined, nor was it an electrical sensing organ similar to the ampulla of Lorenz in later generations of sharks, but it was directly relying on the released ink to sense everything!

Yes, those inks are actually alive. Among them, there are a large number of special microorganisms. These microorganisms have very sensitive vibration sensing capabilities. Once triggered, they can transmit signals back to the spatial synaptic consciousness network of the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group.

The relevant gene sequence had not been deciphered by Lin Yi before, but it was not connected to the nervous system, so Lin Yi had not thought about it in this direction. He just thought it was some strange gene sequence related to the original mother nest.

It wasn't until he completely deciphered it that Lin Yi realized that this strange genetic sequence was actually the key to the right spiral stone nest group's ability to sense enemy creatures in the thick ink.

As for how the signal is transmitted, this is the core of this "unexpected surprise" - these single-cell microorganisms are connected to the spatial synaptic network through a low-profile "spatial synapse" at the single-cell level!

Although it is not known how the connection structure at the single-cell level operates, this undoubtedly allows these single-cell structures that do not have any thinking ability to obtain the "cloud wisdom" from the consciousness of the entire cluster, and can no longer just follow the rules in the genetic sequence. Instinct activities. This single-cell space consciousness node provides more possibilities for the nest group. At this time, Lin Yi only felt that the simple and crude way of perception of the right spiral stone nest group was simply a waste of resources.

In Lin Yi's opinion, the method of using the right spiral stone nest group has the beauty of an echinoderm - that is, using the most complex structure to achieve the most primitive function, and it is not as efficient as the original structure. .

After all, the method of releasing a large number of microorganisms for sensing, and then having the microorganisms transmit signals back, does seem a bit unsatisfactory in front of Lin Yi's echolocation system, and will be subject to various interferences, affecting the accuracy.

Therefore, regarding the use of this structure, Lin Yi does not intend to evolve convergingly with the right spiral stone nest group, but has his own brand-new ideas.

He plans to install this structure on the virus-like microorganisms used to modify genetic sequences in the mother nest, so that they can be completely directly controlled by the nest group, so that the gene editing ability of the nest group can be strengthened to an astonishing level. level.

After experiencing the tragedy of the Anomalocaris nest, Lin Yi increasingly felt that there might be a conspiracy behind the nest's gene editing method. Therefore, he urgently wants to fully use this method for his own use, instead of only indirectly controlling it through unknown means in the Brood.

This process is still very difficult. The mechanism by which the Brood controls those virus-like microorganisms is unknown, and their own genetic sequences are even more difficult to extract, let alone edit.

But Lin Yi, who had gone through countless things, was no longer what he used to be. After repeated twists and turns, the situation finally showed some clues.

In a sense, this kind of virus-like microorganism is originally a grade of microbial form in the nest group, but it is not connected to the spatial synaptic network of the nest group. Now, this last flaw has been made up for by Lin Yi.

Coupled with the large number of genetic sequences accumulated over the years, Lin Yi can now easily control this virus-like life form and perform complex editing and modification of the genetic sequence at will without any restrictions.

In a sense, this can also be regarded as the accumulation of the previous quantitative change to qualitative change. However, after the breakthrough of the spatial synaptic structure of the threshold of the rod, everything followed naturally.

In other words, the base pairs of the gene fragments have been completely deciphered into a language by Lin Yi. The current nest group has realized genetic language and can easily change any desired traits.

Natural evolution can be summed up in two simple words - failure. And now, Lin Yi will personally define success!

(End of this chapter)