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A ‘lost world’ of early microbes thrived one billion years ago
- stackedinserter 3y agoMay I ask you to not touch it until we sort out the current problems?
- zmix 3y agoLOL, wanted to say the same: DO NOT TOUCH!
- gpvos 3y agoOkay, apparently that is a reference to something I'm not getting. Could anyone please explain?
- acegopher 3y agoPerhaps a reference to Australian health ministers asking fans not to touch soccer balls that go into the stands? https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/02/do-not-touch-that-ball-covid-advice-prompts-anger-and-humour-from-afl-fans https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/02/do-not-touch-t...
- zmix 3y agoNo, it's the fact, that microbes, that have been outside of our ecosystem for so long remind a lot of people on the fall of the Aztec Empire...
- duckqlz 3y ago“Professor Jochen Brocks inspecting the 1.6-billion-year-old rocks in Australia’s Northern Territory. The rocks contained a primordial chemical structure that hinted at the existence of the Protosterol Biota.” Not sure where this sentiment is coming from… Considering it’s fat traces of a primordial species that is a common ancestor of all complex life on earth, which went extinct over 800 million years ago, and is found in ancient rocks around waterways literally all over the world; I think we are fine to touch it.
- jaapz 3y agoIt's a joke
- fsflover 3y agoThis is not Reddit, only most sophisticated jokes are accepted here.
- justinator 3y agoAre you sure? I read here that Apple released a $3500 VR headset. I laughed pretty hard, but then realized the date.
- justinator 3y agoSorry, I forget that "play" is not very hn. It's very serious work, and one should take themselves very seriously.
- gonzo41 3y agoI'm not sure you know Austrlaia too well. Rio Tinto's probably laid explosives on in already and is ready to go!
- javajosh 3y agoFinds like this are great because they can possibly shed light on the problem of abiogenesis. Many people, including myself, think there were possibly several generations of life that preceded the RNA/DNA driven stuff we have today. It was probably much simpler and simply consumed by later generations, and lost. If and when we send probes to water bearing places in our solar system, we may find these structures. This, in turn, will support the hypothesis that life is common in the universe. Which will, in turn, support the hypothesis that civs that can muster enough energy to expand beyond the initial star will instead use that power to destroy itself. Which will, in turn, help shape human civilization, if we choose to heed the warning.
- joeythedolphin 3y agoInteresting. I depart towards one of your last steps. It's embarrassing to admit. But hundreds (or thousands) of these UFO reports are real and aliens have been visiting us since the beginning of human life. I said it. Please don't revoke my university degrees :) Actually, you can, they didn't really do anything for me anyway.
- gilleain 3y agoOther discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36238560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36238560
- daniel_iversen 3y agoHere’s a non-paywall article about it from the actual University: https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/scientists-discover-lost-world-early-ancestors-billion-year-old-rocks#:~:text=The%2520discovery%2520of%2520a%2520%E2%80%9Clost,family%2520of%2520organisms%2520called%2520eukaryotes https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/scientists-disco....
- jessriedel 3y ago> from the actual University In my experience, Nature News summaries are generally more trustworthy than university press releases. Nature News can suffer from hype problems seen in all scientific journalism, but it's one of the least bad sources. On the other hand, university press releases are basically unbound by journalism best practices; they can be almost pure marketing and should not be considered more authoritative just because they are associated with the university.
- onlypositive 3y ago> non paywall
- jessriedel 3y agoYes I read that
- dang 3y agoOk, we changed to that from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01847-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01847-8. Thanks!
- ajross 3y agoSeems like the real surprise here isn't the chemistry itself (which matches modern forms), it's that evidence for eukaryotic life from this era is scarce. Eukaryotes apparently hid for a billion years in an ecosystem completely dominated by prokaryote life. Which I guess is surprising since in theory they're supposed to be more complex and adaptable.
- abecedarius 3y agoWhat are the leading theories about why? The lower level of free oxygen?
- fbdab103 3y agoMy naive thought - complexity kills all things. Eukaryotic cell is bigger, has more metabolic processes, can have specialized life cycle, etc. All of which means that it is slower growing and could be out-competed by the faster-growing, but less optimal organism. Natural selection only picks those who survived, not "the best".
- abecedarius 3y agoYes, that's roughly how I was thinking about more oxygen changing the game.
- asdff 3y agoThere were some moments in time that saw eukaryotes gain huge metabolic advantages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis
- andrewflnr 3y agoI wonder if the "hiding" phase was pre-mitochondrial. We can get a long history of stem-eukaryotes (?), starting to build up these diagnostic chemicals, but they don't take over until mitochondria give them a bunch of energy.
- AlbertCory 3y agoHonest question, not a joke: We know that deep underground, and in vents in the ocean floor, there is still some life. Is it possible there are some extreme environments on Earth where this ancient life is still going?
- enkid 3y agoAll life is equally ancient and the pressure of evolution has molded all life for equal amounts of time. (But not necessarily to equal extents as the ability to adapt is itself an evolutionary process.) What we may find is an ancient branch, with some features preserved we don't know about, but also some features adapted for the extreme environment.
- not_alexb 3y agoThis seems like such a huge reductive statement to make. Suppose: on some planet untouched by man, there was a species identical to a species on earth, would you say they share the same ancestor? Suppose: I generated an organism (that already exists) starting from raw chemistry, would that share the same ancestor as the one that already exists?
- AlbertCory 3y agoThe original question was about ancient life still existing on Earth, not hypotheticals.
- not_alexb 3y agoAnd the answer gave such certainty to what ancient life would be like that my hypotheticals should be able to be answered (in the same context) with just as much certainty. It's trivial to apply my hypotheticals to models in which life didn't all descend from a common ancestor.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
- mensetmanusman 3y agoMaybe we should launch these types of microbes to other planets since we know is possible for it to lead to humans and McDonald's.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- borissk 3y agoMaybe we're already launching them - getting rid of all the microbes in a complex machine, like a Mars rover is almost impossible (without destroying electronics and other vulnerable parts on board).