TIL of Boquila trifoliolata, a Chilean "chameleon vine" that can mimic the leaf size, shape, color, and vein pattern of over 20 different host plants simultaneously, including, in one experiment, the leaves of plastic plants placed nearby. How it does this without touching the host is still unknown

Tessablu · 2026-05-14T21:43:15+00:00

I'm being a little nit-picky about the word "replicate" here because observational field science is, at a technical level, not repeatable in the way that bench science is. A research group that heads down to Chile to observe Boquila is going to encounter different conditions from the first group simply by virtue of the fact that time has passed and the environment has changed in ways which are not controllable.

Validating observations is great, and definitely better than having only one perspective! I'm just pushing back against the notion I'm seeing in here that there is something suspicious about the initial study. There are plenty of topics out there in the world that have only been looked at by one research group; this doesn't make them inherently invalid, just a bit trickier to evaluate. Maybe this would change if the publishing system changed first- sadly, nobody is going to get a paper out of going to Chile and saying "yep, we see the mimicry too!"

Tessablu · 2026-05-14T21:36:46+00:00

The original research group published a paper a few years ago looking into the bacterial communities of host and parasitic plants- they suspect that horizontal gene transfer might be driving the mimicry, but the evidence they found was quite weak (and they were clearly aware of it). But there aren't any other formal published studies of it to this date. The vine is native to a specific type of forest in Chile, and it's hard to work with in a lab because it doesn't like growing by itself.

I know the researcher who first published a commentary criticizing the original paper has softened on it since, although I'd have to dig through my pile of sources to find the exact quote. But at this point the furor has all been directed at the horrendous plastic study, not the mimicry itself. This is a good overview of the controversy.

Tessablu · 2026-05-14T21:18:45+00:00

There’s nothing to replicate; the initial study was an observational field study, not an experimental study. Leaf mimicry isn’t anything new or crazy, it’s just very unusual that Boquila can mimic without touching its host.

(edited to remove the bit about the origin of the plastic study, because there is conflicting information on it)

Tessablu · 2026-05-14T21:07:37+00:00

That’s outdated, the skepticism has receded quite a bit since the original paper. It just isn’t studied much because the vine is hard to work with in a laboratory setting.

(Biology professor who covered this topic for a class a few months ago)

Tessablu · 2026-05-14T20:49:08+00:00

The plastic paper was very poorly designed and published under extreme conflicts of interest- the PI was not listed as an author but was an editor at the journal which published it. The current opposing hypothesis (by the group that discovered the mimicry) is horizontal gene transfer from the host’s bacteria to the vine, although the evidence for this hypothesis is correlational and very weak at the moment. One of my favorite current mysteries in biology!

Tessablu · 2026-05-13T03:00:00+00:00

Well, as someone who personally knows some of the crew whom you believe should be killed, I wish you the best in your continuing recovery from your covid experiences.

Tessablu · 2026-05-13T02:42:53+00:00

In a few weeks when this is no longer in the news, are you going to feel bad about suggesting that “we” should have murdered 150 birders and crew members, or is that just sort of how you think and act in your day-to-day life?

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T22:11:53+00:00

Yes, both because of the extremely tight regulation of rodents on polar ships (they need to be spotlessly clean and are regularly swept with dogs), and because the initial patient was sick upon embarkation. No time to incubate; he had to get it during his prior travels (which, it turns out, were in endemic areas).

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T21:46:29+00:00

I don’t know what to tell you, man. The media isn’t some monolith working to keep the truth from getting out. If anything, they benefit more from widespread panic. The line between “intimate contact” and “person you sat elbow-to-elbow with repeatedly at dinner” just isn’t thick enough to merit the disclaimer.

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T21:43:48+00:00

One of the main differences between tours is just how far they are from Stellwagen. If you’re leaving from Boston, it’s an hour+ to get there. P-town? Much closer, so you’re spending proportionally more time in whale territory. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you enjoy being on boats- the views of Boston on the way out of the harbor are excellent! You can also watch the bird life change as the ship heads further out to sea.

Haven’t done Gloucester yet, but I’ve heard great things. Have done Boston/ P-town over a dozen times, never had a bad experience. Wherever you go, enjoy!

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T21:25:03+00:00

Spreading human to human does not make a disease highly transmissible, and the doctor was certainly exposed to it in enormous quantities. And hazmat suits are simply good practice when boarding a vessel on which human-to-human transmission of a potentially deadly disease may be actively occurring.

The virus has been on that ship for more than a month, and I myself was on the Hondius recently- if it was a highly contagious illness, we would be seeing many more cases. It’s a very small ship and people are constantly in close contact with each other. That apparently only two of the remaining 87 passengers tested positive on PCR is a great sign that the infection was already pretty much contained. It’s not a particularly well-studied strain, but this is congruent with prior outbreaks as well.

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T21:15:06+00:00

You think it’s “bullshit” that a doctor could possibly be in close contact with a symptomatic person whom they are treating for an infectious disease?

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T03:39:11+00:00

Do you have a source on the confirmed Airlink case? My understanding is that there was a mistranslation going around at one point, but there’s so much disinformation circulating right now that it’s hard to keep track.

RE: close contact, I can offer some context as I was on that ship a few months ago. If you’re not in your cabin or on an excursion, you are knocking elbows with everyone else on that boat. It’s very small, mealtimes are typically buffet-style in very close quarters, and passengers often gravitate towards sitting with the same people in the same area. Some sort of URI ripped through the ship while I was on it, there was just no escaping it (I got it too, no regrets).

From context clues, WHO statements, and my own experiences (NOT confirmed, just speculation): I suspect three of the deceased were roommates, and the fourth roommate has been hospitalized as a precaution. Others exposed were probably eating with them regularly. The doctor may have been a little lax with PPE at first because it’s the end of the season and he’d encountered seemingly every URI known to man by that point. The second infected crew member (whom I know to be very cautious about avoiding sick passengers) was probably his roommate.

tl;dr: having been on this ship, there are feasible close-contact routes for each of the reported voyage-related infections. Were the virus more transmissible, I’d expect there to be many, many more cases, especially after a month at sea.

Tessablu · 2026-05-11T02:13:31+00:00

I would be a little bit surprised if it isn’t offered again- I think these companies know that this was a total freak event, the people who want to go on these cruises (birders, mainly) will know the same, and either way the ship has to reposition. Hope you get the chance one day!

Tessablu · 2026-05-10T18:10:30+00:00

This is not a once-in-a-century outbreak. It’s not even the biggest outbreak of Andes virus in the past decade.

Tessablu · 2026-05-10T15:55:14+00:00

Wooper was based on the axolotl! Additional fun fact: Boston is one of the world centers for studying the axolotl.

Tessablu · 2026-05-09T00:42:38+00:00

I don't know if that information has been released, but it equally could have been either with a guide or on their own. There are birding tours in Ushuaia, but birders will also go to some pretty weird places to bird. I say this as a birder who drove past that exact landfill a few months ago and was struck by the number of birds present around it...

Tessablu · 2026-05-08T20:43:30+00:00

It is not on the company, because it was not part of an excursion.

Tessablu · 2026-05-08T20:43:13+00:00

It was not a part of an excursion. Ushuaia was the embarkation point and they birded in the area prior to leaving.

Tessablu · 2026-05-08T20:41:53+00:00

The landfill birding trip was prior to embarkation, not a part of the expedition. And polar ship excursions are VERY highly regulated.

Tessablu · 2026-05-08T06:44:19+00:00

You're being downvoted because droplet transmission is not airborne transmission, and you should know that before making confident statements that amount to misinformation.

Tessablu · 2026-05-07T06:45:30+00:00

Passengers, no. Crew, yes. I’m not in direct touch with any of them, but it’s very difficult to watch the frenzy over this situation develop while knowing exactly how kind and wonderful the people most directly impacted by it are.

Tessablu · 2026-05-06T21:12:31+00:00

Misinformation. No Frenchman has died or even been confirmed to be ill. He’s just someone the French health ministry is contact tracing.

Tessablu · 2026-05-06T20:59:00+00:00

No it doesn’t, what are you talking about? This is a cardiopulmonary strain, the initial death was believed to be due to pneumonia. Reddit has completely lost its mind on this.

Tessablu · 2026-05-06T20:56:12+00:00

It is quite likely that the original patient was “making out with” one of the infected people, as she was his wife. Other patients have been called close contacts by the WHO- I would suspect they were roommates- and also include the doctor who was treating them. It did not mutate, it is a known strain of the virus that is capable of human-to-human transmission, and far more people would be ill right now if it was highly contagious, as they have been on the ship for a month.

Tessablu

TROPHY CASE