{"id":125984,"date":"2021-08-07T21:22:39","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T04:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/scientists-shorten-daddy-long-legs-iconic-limbs-to-figure-out-how-they-got-so-gangly"},"modified":"2021-08-07T21:22:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-08T04:22:39","slug":"scientists-shorten-daddy-long-legs-iconic-limbs-to-figure-out-how-they-got-so-gangly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/scientists-shorten-daddy-long-legs-iconic-limbs-to-figure-out-how-they-got-so-gangly","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Shorten Daddy Long-Legs\u2019 Iconic Limbs to Figure Out How They Got So Gangly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-shorten-daddy-long-legs-iconic-limbs-to-figure-out-how-they-got-so-gangly2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Through a process known as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/RNA_interference\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RNA interference<\/a> (RNAi), scientists have been able to modify the genetic make-up of the daddy long-legs arachnid so that its distinctive spindly limbs become twice as short.<\/p>\n<p>This process \u2013 which uses a gene\u2019s own DNA sequence and small fragments of RNA to turn the gene off \u2013 was applied to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phalangium_opilio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Phalangium opilio<\/em><\/a> species, one of the most common species of daddy long-legs in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The result is effectively a daddy short-legs instead of a daddy long-legs. The team behind the work is hoping that the experiments can teach us more about how these elongated limbs evolved in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Through a process known as RNA interference (RNAi), scientists have been able to modify the genetic make-up of the daddy long-legs arachnid so that its distinctive spindly limbs become twice as short. This process \u2013 which uses a gene\u2019s own DNA sequence and small fragments of RNA to turn the gene off \u2013 was applied [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":621,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}