Have you ever wondered how electric eels and some kinds of fish evolved to be able to generate an electrical current with their bodies? Researchers studying electric eels, and fish that can also generate a shock have come up with some interesting discoveries, including the fact that hundreds of different species in six different lineages evolved the ability to generate electricity independently from each other.
Have you ever wondered how electric eels evolved to be able to generate an electrical current with their bodies?
Researchers studying electric eels, and fish that can also generate a shock have come up with some interesting discoveries, including the fact that hundreds of different species in six different lineages evolved the ability to generate electricity independently from each other.
Leonard Maler, who studies electric fish at the University of Ottawa commented on the study, saying: "You have to simultaneously co-evolve genes that do very many different things in some kind of directed manner. It can't just be random….They've raised the problem beautifully in this paper.”
The team of researchers identified a set of around 30 genes that evolved to create electricity generating species.
Scientists predict that the same kind of electricity generating tissue could be used in the future to power pace makers, or insulin pumps for humans.
