Chapter 681 Him and His Children (1/2)

As initially guessed by the Alliance Biological Research Institute, the forests in Baiyue Province are the children of "Gaia" and the earth.

The forest here does not only refer to the trees in the forest.

It also includes flowers, plants, insects, birds, animals, and even the humans who once lived here.

The mother nest that landed on this land opened up its own gene pool, and at the same time gave all creatures on this land the ability to exchange genetic material with each other.

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

Rather, under the unique framework of natural selection on the earth, the best gene fragments and the combinations between fragments stand out from evolution, and are carried forward in the ultimate natural selection and constant trial and error.

It only took them two centuries to complete the path that the earth's ecosystem would have taken 2 million or 20 million years to complete - or even not be able to complete at all.

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

After 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 aside, couldn't help but ask.

"What about the people here? They also had that fusion... fused the DNA of the alien species?"

Chen Yutong nodded again.

"It should be no surprise that there are not as many survivors in this area as in Qingquan City, but there must be some who have stayed."

Lao Bai looked at her blankly.

"But... aren't the survivors in the southern sea still fine? We don't feel any difference between them and us."

As if he had guessed that he would ask this question, 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. The survivors in the southern seas are just the ones who left. They are just humans, and they will no longer participate in the evolution that takes place in this rainforest.”

Lao Bai asked with a slight frown.

"What about the people left behind?"

“During evolution, it ‘disappeared’ or was integrated into other forms of existence…”

As he spoke, Chen Yutong squatted on the ground, gently picked a leaf of yellow bamboo grass from the roadside, stood up and handed it to his hand.

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

"This is?"

"A piece of imperial 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? !

Both Lao Bai and Fang Chang had surprised expressions on their faces.

How the hell is this done? !

"... We are still unable to trace how this DNA fragment that originally belonged to humans migrated to the Bamboo Grass. Maybe it migrated through the food chain, maybe it was bridged by some kind of intermediate microorganism, or both. And what happened after that During the investigation, we soon found similar situations in mutant spiders, lizards, and even snails... They have elements of humans as well as elements of other species."

Looking at the stunned two people, Chen Yutong said softly.

"This is Gaia."

“He handed the Earth a key that unlocked our evolution.”

"The lock to the evolution of all things."

Fang Chang stared at her dumbfounded, feeling that he didn't understand at all, but he seemed to understand a little.

This reminded him of a game he once played called Stars.

There was an ascension talent that he seldom clicked called "Cross-species Compatibility", which was the last section of "Gene Ascension".

That’s not to say that this route isn’t strong. In fact, it’s the most buggy ascension route in the entire game.

Because once cross-species compatibility is unlocked, it means that players can use a series of war crimes operations, such as continuously placing two creatures with different characteristics on the same planet, forcing them to interbreed, and the newly born hybrids will be from Pick one positive trait from your parents to inherit, and it is not restricted by the upper limit of genetic improvement and can be stacked infinitely.

Players only need to tirelessly repeat the operation several times, and eventually they can create a super species that is compatible with all the positive traits in the game!

It’s like having buffs all over your body!

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

Any hybrids between different species will breed with other hybrids, and the images and names will eventually become bizarre.

I don’t know whether the computer’s CPU will dry out in the end, but the human brain’s CPU will definitely dry out.

Why bother?

Even if the BUFFs are not stacked to the sky, the few AIs in the game with underdeveloped cerebellum are no match for the players.

Therefore, most players will click until the last part of "Ji Fei" is stuck, in order to maintain the purity of the species and their own sense of substitution.

There are also a few players who will, after the ultimate goal is achieved - that is, after getting the super creature that combines thousands of buffs, they will get other mixed-blood intermediate products on a planet, release the vassal to declare war, and charge the colossus in one go, giving them all to Tutu. Lose.

The situation represented by the planet Gaia is a bit like a civilization with "cross-species compatibility".

For some reason, they not only achieve cross-species communion, but also integrate organisms on the entire planet through unimpeded genetic exchange.

To outsiders, they appear to be a unified consciousness.

However, if you take a closer look, you will see that it is not a honeycomb as ordinary people understand it, but thousands of honeycombs all integrated into one!

He is all-in-one and all-in-one.

That civilization that has been dissolved into the invisible may be more advanced than human imagination.

As for why their footprints have not traveled across thousands of stars, or why they have lost their original appearance, it is just that the two sides have different pursuits.

The stars in the sky are not just one color, and not all civilizations are keen on expanding their territories.

Maybe 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 that the human colonists called Gaia.

The colonists returned the mother nest carrying the poem to the earth, and the mother nest scattered in Baiyue Province is an excerpt from this poem.

Fang Chang vaguely felt that he seemed to be close to the truth of the three-year war - the main plot of "Wasteland OL" since the server was launched.

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

"But... how is this done?"

A common view in the biological community is that horizontal gene transmission is unique to microorganisms and rarely occurs between eukaryotic organisms.

This is also the reason why the evolution of life on Earth basically extends downwards in a "fork shape" after passing through the early microbial stage.

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 waves of rats met again, and 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 will mention such a simple model when explaining the concepts related to geographical isolation and reproductive isolation.

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

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

What's more, this does not require nine years of compulsory education.

He believed that horses and donkeys could mate, but ants and trees, spiders and cockroaches... How on earth could these strange combinations come together? !

Seeing the confused expression on his face, Chen Yutong raised his index finger and pressed his eyebrows, and said somewhat helplessly.

"...I can probably guess what you are thinking, is reproductive isolation between species right?"

Lao Bai nodded.

"Yes."

Chen Yutong continued patiently.

"Generally speaking, this is the case, but reproduction is not the only way of gene transmission... Let's take an example from Earth. Smelt and herring are two unrelated cold-water fish, but herring's resistance The frozen protein gene appears in the gene sequence of the former, which we call horizontal migration of genes. "

"According to the relevant literature of the Prosperity Era, similar situations exist not only in fish, but also in reptiles, birds, and mammals. Therefore, as of before the war, the common view in the academic community is that the evolution of life is not a classic tree shape, there are always a few tiny threads sticking between some branches.”

"What Gaia has done is to turn these threads, which originally played only a small role in biological evolution, into bridges between species, turning the original tree-fork-shaped evolution pattern of life on the earth into a new one. It has become a 'net' similar to Gaia."

This time, Lao Bai held his eyebrows with a headache.

"So...we have also joined Glorious Evolution now?"

Chen Yutong nodded and looked towards the airtight 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 human remains. These are one of the ways to enter. But this is at a macro level On the micro level, as long as we are not eaten and turned into feces by the alien species here, we will not disappear in this rain forest. "

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, alien species have been leaving this forest, and new alien species have joined in. Some ethnic groups have thrived in this rain forest, while some groups have contributed their own DNA and disappeared from the rain forest."

"Looking at it abstractly, this forest is equivalent to 'Gaia' that has superimposed the natural laws of the earth and developed to the primary stage. All creatures in the entire rainforest are fruiting bodies, and the total is an abstract 'mother nest' ...As for the most primitive and specific mother nest, we are still looking for it.”

"...How on earth could such a thing be done?" Lao Bai was still scratching his head in confusion, thinking over and over again about this problem that he couldn't figure out even if he was dead.

Seeing his confused expression, Chen Yutong was a little helpless, but he still said patiently.

"This is also an issue we are studying, including why this forest is limited to this province and not spread to other places... Don't be too impatient."

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

"In addition, the 'self-healing' you observed before actually exists based on the principles I mentioned before."

“Genes communicate unimpededly between species, and more powerful species are continuously selected through natural selection. The organisms here, whether they are plants or animals, whether they are producers or consumers in the food chain, all have extremely strong vitality. And the ability to accumulate nutrients...because if not, they will soon become cannon fodder that disappears after contributing a few sets of code.”

"In this highly 'involved' environment, once a physical vacuum area appears, it will be quickly occupied by other species."

Fang Chang asked with a headache.

"Is there a solution?"

Chen Yutong: "Actually, it's easy to solve. Just maintain possession of the area. For example, the land under your feet cannot grow very lush grass because people often pass by it. Even if it is paved with cement, it can last for a long time." , but the relative maintenance costs may be higher than elsewhere.”

Fang Chang asked immediately.

“What if it’s an area that’s not very active?”

"Then... there is nothing we can do," Chen Yutong made a helpless expression, "Not to mention your gathering place, even the Shilong City that existed before, could not stop this extraordinary force of nature. The creatures here cannot tolerate any wastage. It would be better if you try your best to make use of the developed land. "

Fang Chang said with a wry smile.

“And then suffer high maintenance costs, right?”

The infrastructure expenditure of Chipchi Port is entirely paid for by Baiyue Strait Development Co., Ltd. It is impossible for the alliance's finance to pay for the road construction expenses of Chipchi Port. It must carefully consider the issue of balance of payments.

And it's not just about money.

From a macro perspective, money is just a tool to balance logistics profit and loss and market supply and demand. The damage caused by a negative asset is not only a shortfall in financial reporting, but also a large amount of manpower and material resources wasted on meaningless things.

Chen Yutong looked at him helplessly and said.

"It may be a good idea to maintain the original ecological style as much as possible. In fact, there is no need to make all 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 else.

"Ah, by the way, haven't you been studying how to use slime mold in the construction field recently? You might as well try that kind of biological self-repairing material, maybe it will be suitable for the special situation here. As for the land with low utilization rate, why not Maintain the original ecology of the forest——"

At this moment, Lao Bai, who had been getting into trouble just now, suddenly interjected.

"It's not impossible."

Both of them looked at him in unison, and Fang Chang asked immediately.

"What can I do?"

"How about planting some tropical crops to occupy the area that cannot be developed for the time being? For example, rubber, cotton, etc... I remember that there were some high-yielding cotton seeds in the shelter a long time ago?"

Lao Bai glanced at the Yue 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 for planting. As long as there are things growing on the ground, it should be fine, right?"

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

In addition, this land has a "Growth Speed ​​+ n%" buff, and the soil fertility seems to be ridiculously high, so maybe three or four crops can be harvested a year.

He has given up on understanding the settings in the game from a scientific perspective. It is better to use the settings of the game to understand, and his ideas will open up.

Chen Yutong's eyes also lit up and he said excitedly.

"Yeah... that's a good idea. It's actually pretty much 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 the worried expression on his face, Lao Bai shrugged helplessly.

"...We have been here for so long, do you think we are still missing one or two chromosomes?"

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

Not to mention metabolites, they just dumped more than one or two corpses in the forest. What do a few cotton seeds count?

What's more, this rainforest didn't become like this just today. What new thing haven't you seen before?

He touched his forehead with his right hand and said in a dumbfounded voice.

"makes sense……"

——

(Thanks to the leader of "Sarajago" for the reward!!!)