Chapter 681 He and His Children

  Chapter 681 He and His Child

  Just as the Alliance Biological Research Institute initially speculated, the forests of Baiyue Province are the children of “Gaia” and the Earth.

  The forests here do not only refer to the trees in the forest.

  They also include flowers, insects, birds, birds and beasts, and even humans who once lived here.

  The mother nest that landed on this land opened its gene bank and gave all creatures on this land the ability to exchange genetic material with each other.

  Of course, this exchange is not an irregular and random migration.

  Instead, under the framework of natural selection unique to the Earth, the best gene fragments and the arrangement and combination of fragments stand out from evolution and flourish in the extreme natural selection and continuous trial and error. It

  took them only two centuries to complete the journey that the Earth’s ecosystem originally took 2 million or 20 million years to walk – or even impossible to walk.

  The rustling of leaves and the chirping of insects sounded in my ears.

  Hearing this shocking conclusion, Fang Chang was stunned for a long time, his Adam’s apple moved slightly, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

  ”…Is this fusion?”

  Chen Yutong nodded.

  Lao Bai, who was standing by, couldn’t help but ask.

  ”What about the people here? Did they also undergo that fusion… fused with the DNA of different species?”

  Chen Yutong nodded again.

  ”If nothing unexpected happens, it should be. There are not as many survivors in this area as in Qingquan City, but there must be some people who stayed.”

  Lao Bai looked at her blankly.

  ”But… aren’t the survivors in the southern sea area still fine? We don’t feel any difference between them and us.”

  As if she had guessed that he would ask this, Chen Yutong explained patiently.

  ”The evolution of individuals and the evolution of populations are two different things in different dimensions. Faced with the extremely deteriorating natural environment, some people chose to leave, and some chose to stay. And the survivors in the southern sea area are just the part of the people who left. They will no longer participate in the evolution that took place in this rainforest.”

  Lao Bai frowned slightly and asked.

  ”What about the people who stayed?”

  ”They ‘disappeared’ in the evolution, or were fused and turned into other forms of existence…”

  While speaking, Chen Yutong squatted on the ground, gently picked a leaf of yellow bamboo grass from the roadside, stood up and handed it to him.

  Taking the blade of grass, Lao Bai looked at her in confusion.

  ”What is this?”

  ”A piece of royal bamboo grass,” Chen Yutong looked at the blade of grass in his hand and continued, “We found human mitochondrial DNA fragments in the mitochondria of the sliced ​​cells of a royal bamboo grass sample.”

  Human mitochondria? !

  Lao Bai and Fang Chang both showed surprised expressions on their faces.

  How the hell did this happen? !

  ”… We are still unable to trace how this DNA fragment originally belonging to humans migrated to the royal bamboo grass. Maybe it migrated through the food chain, maybe it was bridged by some intermediate microorganisms, or both. In subsequent investigations, we soon found similar situations in mutant spiders, lizards, and even snails… They have both human components and components of other species.” Looking at the

  two stunned people, Chen Yutong said softly.

  ”This is Gaia.”

  ”He handed the earth a key and opened the lock in our evolution.”

  ”The lock of the evolution of all things.”

  Fang Chang looked at her in amazement, feeling that he didn’t understand at all, but he seemed to understand a little.

  This reminded him of a game called Stars that he had played before.

  There is a talent he rarely chooses for ascension called “cross-species compatibility”, which is the last part of “genetic ascension”.

  It’s not that this route is not strong, in fact, this is the most buggy ascension route in the whole game.

  Because once cross-species compatibility is unlocked, it means that players can perform a series of war criminal operations, such as constantly putting two creatures with different characteristics on the same planet and forcing them to hybridize. The newly born hybrid will choose a positive trait from the parents and inherit it, and it is not limited by the upper limit of genetic improvement and can be stacked infinitely.

  Players only need to repeat the operation several times without getting tired, and finally they can create a super species that is compatible with all the positive traits in the game!

  It’s equivalent to buffs all over the body!

  However, at the same time, the side effect is that the player’s race interface becomes a messy color palette.

  Hybrids born from any different species will reproduce with other hybrids, and the images and names will eventually become strange.

  I don’t know if the computer’s CPU will explode in the end, but the human brain’s CPU will definitely burn out.

  Why bother?

  Even if you don’t stack the buffs to the sky, the AIs with underdeveloped cerebellums in the game are no match for the players.

  Therefore, most players will stop clicking and stick to the last part of “Basic Flying” to maintain the purity of the species and their own sense of immersion.

  There are also a few players who, after achieving the ultimate goal – that is, after obtaining the super creature with thousands of buffs, will bring other hybrid intermediate products to a planet, place vassals to declare war on the colossus and charge them in one go, and shoot them all.

  The situation shown by the planet Gaia is a bit like a civilization that has clicked on “cross-species compatibility”.

  For some reason, they have not only achieved cross-species integration, but also integrated the organisms on the entire planet into one in the unimpeded genetic exchange.

  To outsiders, they are a unified consciousness.

  However, if you look at it carefully, it is not a beehive as ordinary people understand, but thousands of beehives are all one!

  He is the whole, and the whole is Him.

  The civilization that has dissolved into the invisible may be more advanced than humans imagine.

  As for why their footprints did not cover all the stars, or why they lost their original appearance, it was just because the two sides had different pursuits.

  The stars in the sky are not of only one color, and not all civilizations are keen on expanding their territory.

  Perhaps some civilizations are born to build a wonder or write a poem.

  And their poems have been written in the past years – that is, the existence called Gaia by human colonists.

  The colonists sent the mother nest carrying the poem back to the earth, and the mother nests scattered in the Baiyue Province are an excerpt from this poem.

  Fang Chang vaguely felt that he seemed to have approached the truth of the three-year war – the main line that “Wasteland OL” has been buried since the launch of the server.

  Looking at Chen Yutong, Lao Bai still had an expression of incomprehension.

  ”But…how is this done?”

  The general view in the biological community is that the horizontal transmission of genes is unique to microorganisms and rarely occurs between eukaryotic organisms.

  This is also the reason why the evolution of life on Earth, after passing the early microbial stage, basically extends downward in a “tree-like” manner.

  A river separated the rats, with mountains on one side and forests on the other. Millions of years later, the river dried up and the two groups of rats met again. Reproductive isolation occurred between them, which can be regarded as evolving into different species. It can even be said that “isolation” is a necessary condition for the generation of new species.

  Most biology textbooks and popular science books mention such a simple model when explaining the concepts of geographical isolation and reproductive isolation.

  However, she told him that the isolation between species was broken? !

  Although he did not understand biology, he had received nine years of compulsory education after all.

  What’s more, there was no need for nine years of compulsory education.

  He believed that horses and donkeys could mate, but how could ants and trees, spiders and cockroaches… these strange combinations get together? !

  Seeing the confused expression on his face, Chen Yutong raised her index finger and pressed her forehead, saying helplessly.

  ”…I can probably guess what you are thinking. Reproductive isolation between species, right?”

  Lao Bai nodded.

  ”Yes.”

  Chen Yutong continued patiently.

  ”Generally speaking, it is true, but gene transmission is not limited to reproduction… Let’s take an example from Earth. Smelt and herring are two unrelated cold-water fish, but the antifreeze protein gene of herring appears in the gene sequence of the former. We call this horizontal gene migration.”

  ”According to the relevant literature of the Prosperous Era, similar situations exist not only in fish, but also in reptiles, birds, and mammals. Therefore, until before the war, the general view in the academic community was that the evolution of life was not a classic tree shape, and some branches were always connected by a small amount of fine threads.”

  ”And what Gaia did was to turn these threads, which originally played only a minor role in biological evolution, into a bridge between species, turning the original tree-like life evolution pattern of the Earth into a ‘net’ similar to that on Gaia.”

  This time, it was Old White who pressed his forehead with a headache.

  ”So… have we now joined the glorious evolution?”

  Chen Yutong nodded and looked at the impenetrable rainforest in the distance.

  ”Yes, the genes we carry will also enter this forest in some form. The ubiquitous microorganisms will decompose our feces, hair, and even our remains. This is one of the ways to enter. However, this is integration at the macro level. At the micro level, as long as we are not eaten by the alien species here and turned into feces, we will not disappear in this rainforest.”

  Fang Chang, who had been thinking for a long time, suddenly asked.

  ”What if we leave this forest?”

  Chen Yutong looked at him and said.

  ”Nothing will happen. Just like the survivors who left the rainforest and fled to the island, the genes they took with them will no longer participate in the evolution of the rainforest.”

  ”In fact, in the past two centuries, there have been alien species leaving this forest, and new alien species have joined. Some tribes have multiplied and grown in this rainforest, and some tribes have contributed their DNA and disappeared from the rainforest.”

  ”Abstractly speaking, this forest is equivalent to ‘Gaia’ that has superimposed the natural laws of the earth and developed to the primary stage. All the creatures in the entire rainforest are fruiting bodies, and the sum of them is an abstract ‘mother nest’… As for the most primitive and specific mother nest, we are still looking for it.”

  ”…How is this kind of thing done?” Lao Bai was still scratching his head in confusion, repeatedly pondering this problem that he could not figure out no matter how hard he tried.

  Seeing his stubborn expression, Chen Yutong was also a little helpless, but still said patiently.

  ”This is also the problem we are studying, including why this forest is limited to this province and has not spread to other places… Don’t be too impatient.”

  After a pause, she looked at Fang Chang who was thinking.

  ”In addition, the ‘self-healing’ you observed before is actually based on the principles I mentioned before.”

  ”Genes communicate unimpeded between species, and constantly select stronger species in natural selection. The organisms here, whether plants or animals, whether producers or consumers in the food chain, have extremely strong vitality and nutrient accumulation ability… Because if not, they will soon become cannon fodder that disappears after contributing a few sets of code.” ”

  In this highly ‘involution’ environment, once a physical vacuum area appears, it will soon be quickly occupied by other species.”

  Fang Chang asked with a headache.

  ”Is there a solution?”

  Chen Yutong: “It’s actually very easy to solve. Just maintain the possession of the area. For example, the land under your feet, because people often pass by, it can’t grow too lush grass. It can last for a long time if it is paved with cement, but the relative maintenance cost may be higher than other places.”

  Fang Chang immediately asked.

  ”What if it is an area that is not often active?”

  ”Then… there is no way,” Chen Yutong made a helpless expression, “Not to mention your gathering place, even the previously existing Shilong City has not been able to resist the erosion of this extraordinary natural force. The creatures here cannot tolerate any waste. You should try your best to make use of the land that has been opened up.”

  Fang Chang said with a wry smile.

  ”And then bear the high maintenance costs, right?”

  The infrastructure expenses of French Fries Port are entirely paid by Baiyue Strait Development Co., Ltd. The alliance finances are unlikely to pay for the expenses of building roads in French Fries Port. He must carefully consider the issue of balance of income and expenditure.

  And this is not just a matter of money.

  From a macro perspective, money is just a tool to balance the profit and loss of logistics and the relationship between supply and demand in the market. The damage caused by a negative asset is not only a deficit in the financial report, but also causes a lot of manpower and material resources to be wasted on meaningless things.

  Chen Yutong looked at him helplessly and said.

  ”It might be a good idea to try to maintain the original ecological landscape. In fact, there is no need to build all the settlements the same. Why not consider exploring a model suitable for the development of Baiyue Province? This is the only suggestion I can give.”

  When she said this, she suddenly thought of something.

  ”Oh, by the way, aren’t you studying how to use slime mold in the construction field recently? Why not try that kind of biological self-repairing material? Maybe it’s just suitable for the special situation here. As for the land with low utilization rate, it’s better to keep the original ecology of the forest-”

  At this time, Lao Bai, who had been nitpicking, suddenly interrupted.

  ”It’s not that there is no other way.”

  The two of them looked at him at the same time, and Fang Chang asked immediately.

  ”What’s the solution?”

  ”For areas that cannot be developed for the time being, how about planting some tropical crops to occupy the space? For example, rubber, cotton, etc. I remember that there were some high-yield cotton seeds in the shelter a long time ago?”

  Lao Bai glanced at the Moon Tribe people in the eastern camp and continued.

  ”Just like when we were in Qingquan City, we reclaimed the land and then contracted it to them to plant. As long as there is something growing on the ground, there should be no problem, right?”

  The maintenance cost of cotton fields is always much lower than that of concrete fields, and the cash crops produced can also make a fortune.

  In addition, this piece of land has a “growth rate +n%” buff, and the soil fertility seems to be ridiculously high. Maybe three or four harvests can be harvested in a year.

  He has given up trying to understand the settings in the game from a scientific perspective. It is better to use the game settings to understand it, and his mind is opened up.

  Chen Yutong’s eyes also lit up and said excitedly.

  ”Yes… This is a good idea. In fact, it is similar to what I thought. Just replace those flowers and plants with cash crops.”

  Fang Chang frowned slightly.

  ”But will this introduce genes here and make the situation here more complicated?”

  Seeing his worried expression, Lao Bai shrugged helplessly.

  ”…We have been here for so long, do you think we are still short of one or two chromosomes?”

  Fang Chang was stunned, and suddenly realized that he asked a very stupid question, ignoring the order of magnitude difference between the variable and the population.

  Let alone metabolites, they have left more than one or two corpses in this forest, what can a few cotton seeds count for?

  Besides, this rainforest has not become like this today, what new things have they not seen?

  Touching his forehead with his right hand, he said with a smile.

  ”That’s true…”

  -

  (Thanks to the leader “Sara Yago” for the reward!!!)

  (End of this chapter)