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Two lifeforms merge in once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event
- personjerry 2y agoWhat's more likely, it happens once in a billion years and we happened to catch the exact specimens doing it? Or it happens a lot more often and we happened to catch an instance of it, but it's usually not as impactful or memorable as the mentioned instances? Terrible sensationalist reporting.
- qup 2y ago> Altogether, the team says this indicates UCYN-A is a full organelle, which is given the name of nitroplast. It appears that this began to evolve around 100 million years ago, which sounds like an incredibly long time but is a blink of an eye compared to mitochondria and chloroplasts. It happened 100 million year ago, not in the petri dish at the lab.
- colechristensen 2y agoIt really has only happened a few times in the history of life, at least only a few times that survived. The title could use a little work though.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mkl 2y agoThis particular instance started 100 million years ago, so it's not a right-place-right-moment situation. There are only two known instances of symbiogenesis occurring, mitochondria and plastids (which includes chloroplasts), which justifies the once in a billion years description. Other instances are suspected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis There are lots of known endosymbionts, separate organisms living inside the body or cells of another, a prerequisite for symbiogenesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiont
- temp0826 2y agoMaybe just bad article or I'm not fully getting it... So when this algae reproduces, do the offspring contain the new organelle? Article mentions something about dumping old DNA, but does it incorporate the DNA of the bacterium in the process? Not a biologist by any stretch
- colechristensen 2y agoYes. The organelle replicates with the host cell. As time goes on more and more of the bacterium’s DNA involved in separate survival outside the host just goes away as it further specializes in its task and leaves the rest to the host cell. Chloroplasts and mitochondria had the same kind of beginning.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jessekv 2y agoIf I understand your question correctly, the cell devision figure directly addresses it (the answer is yes).
- kkylin 2y agoPrimary sources: [1] https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(24)00182-X.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(24)00182-X.pdf [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38603509/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38603509/ There's also a press release from LBL: [3] https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/04/17/scientists-discover-first-nitrogen-fixing-organelle/ https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/04/17/scientists-discover-fi... [1] is open access.
- neglesaks 2y ago[flagged]
- dblack12705 2y agoYou two fix nitrogen together?
- mrweiner 2y agoIt happens once every billion years?
- saagarjha 2y agoOrganelles, not organs.
- wolverine876 2y agoThe Cell paper uses the heading "Summary" rather than "Abstract". When and where and why did that change? I don't see it in other papers and in other links for this paper. Maybe I don't read Cell enough?
- blindriver 2y ago[flagged]
- mkl 2y agoThey literally show X-ray pictures of the organelle splitting in sync with the host cell. The mechanisms are not completely separate. These organisms have been evolving that process for 100 million years, from a more common (and long and stable) endosymbiont relationship. There is no magic.
- moomin 2y agoI mean, it doesn’t work exactly like that (the article describes it more accurately) but I consider that literally every cell in your body contradicts you.
- gus_massa 2y agoI'm guessing too much, but ... Perhaps originaly the host cell had many copies of the small cell inside. This is how mithocondria and chloroplasts work today. There are some signals to keep their number near the optial value. [1] Perhaps after a few millons years they improved the signals and now there can be exactly one small cell per host cell. (I'd be happy to read a better description if someone knows more about the subject.) [1] and there are some cell that had chloroplasts but lost all of them
- qarl 2y agoYou seem very confident that this couldn't possible happen - but in fact we have examples of it already having happened... So maybe you should tone down your indignation?
- blindriver 2y agoExamples of cells that have engulfed other cells, and then had the ability to recreate both itself and the engulfed cells faithfully? Where? If you're pointing to mitochondria, there's only science fiction wild theory that has no evidence unless you like to believe Alex Jones theories. It's far more likely that it developed organically from within, like how real science believes, ie. evolution. You have to remember that engulfing another organism is not even 10% of the job here. It needs to be faithfully replicated when the cell divides. To just assume that another organism can be engulfed and then the cell magically can figure out how to recreate an entirely new copy of it from within itself is absurd.
- akozak 2y agoNice. We'll have to check back in 10 million years to see how it went.
- yosito 2y agoIt happened 100 million years ago.
- riwsky 2y agoWitness the power of dependency injection
- buitreVirtual 2y ago:facepalm: :)
- notfed 2y agogit submodules
- Brian_K_White 2y agoBut this is vendoring.
- airstrike 2y agoArguably a better source was posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40101317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40101317 but no discussion there
- koeng 2y agoHmmmm, I don't know if I buy their claim of primary endosymbiosis being so rare. Almost all insects have heritable endosymbionts. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2013.00046 https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2013.00046
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Ultimatt 2y agoThat's a different meaning of endosymbiosis at a more macro scale. This is cellular endosymbiosis. Having bacteria in your gut is not the same as having them be integrated at a molecular level into your cells as an organelle. You're scepticism of the media hype claim is correct though, there are other well known examples of endosymbiosis like this occurring, primary and secondary. Perhaps not primary with cyanobacteria but thats hardly some huge "scientific leap" in understanding or astonishment compared to some of the other stuff we know about. Ironically you do see this kind of cellular endosymbiosis amongst the endosymbionts within insect guts with the most extreme example probably being Mixotricha paradoxa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixotricha_paradoxa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixotricha_paradoxa Hatena arenicola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatena_arenicola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatena_arenicola is very similar to this new finding, but with an algae instead of a cyanobacteria so its a secondary endosymbiosis which if anything is actually more interesting and bizarre. We also know from the genome of Smybiodinium that its undergone quite a few endosymbiotic capture events some secondary with algae but quite likely some primary with bacteria too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiodinium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiodinium
- borisk 2y agoThe first symbiotic event was a million times harder than the 2nd or the 3rd. The first time the host had the extremely hard task of dealing with any DNA and RNA produced by the guest during it's life and death. The host had to evolve stuff like a cell nucleaus and sex to live through it and alternative splicing to deal with the fact that all it's genes were damaged by selfish genetic elements that came from the guest. Integrating any later symbionts is still hard, but not nearly as hard. It's possible that the first symbiosis that let to the origin of the eukaryotes is not a one in a billion years event, but one in a trillion or one in 10^20 years or ever rarer. That is it may be that in a billion planets with simple life forms only one "creates" complex life like animals. It can be the great filter that leads to the Fermi paradox.
- ryanjamurphy 2y ago> It can be the great filter that leads to the Fermi paradox. I'm increasingly of a similar view — that the great filter is something we're already past, due to the incredible combinations of constraints that led to where we are today. Another infinitesimal probability may be the development of abstract intelligence. The conditions that led to our brand of intelligence being an evolutionary advantage seem particularly unique: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210002/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210002/
- borissk 2y agoGood one, I'll have a look. Are there any good videos on YouTube on the topic of origin of intelligence? I can't seem to find any.
- ryanjamurphy 2y agoWish I could recommend one but I don't frequent YouTube, sorry!
- AmIDev 2y agoI feel there might be intelligent species out there without either the resources to develop technology or the ability to do so. Sharks could become smarter than us one day, but without thumbs they aren't going to succeed in overtaking the planet. Similarly, there could be a humanoid fish species under thick ice sheets of Europa, and they would never guess there is anything more than their "ocean" in the universe.
- nneonneo 2y agoCheck out the algae in question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braarudosphaera_bigelowii https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braarudosphaera_bigelowii It surrounds itself with twelve pentaliths, forming a perfect dodecahedron! This is such an incredibly cool organism.
- aetherspawn 2y agoWow it looks like something out of stargate. Hard to believe that it’s natural and organic with such sharp edges.
- zharknado 2y agoIn other words, it has a D12 exoskeleton.
- euroderf 2y agoAlso cool-looking are Volvox.
- Tagbert 2y agoDiatoms generate a silicon dioxide skeleton and they look like little space probes. https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/an-introduction-to-diatoms/ https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/an-introductio... https://www.mediastorehouse.com/science-photo-library/diatom-sem-6276921.html https://www.mediastorehouse.com/science-photo-library/diatom...
- alex_young 2y agoIsn’t the placenta an example of this? https://whyy.org/segments/the-placenta-went-viral-and-protomammals-were-born/ https://whyy.org/segments/the-placenta-went-viral-and-protom...
- yosito 2y agoI passed high school biology with a C, but I think the difference here is that two completely distinct independent organisms merged into one. The mammalian placenta seems to be more of an example of animals appropriating genetic code from viruses, which I suspect is something far more common in evolution.
- mkl 2y agoNo, it's derived from a virus, not an independent living organism. 8% of human DNA is derived from viruses that infected our ancestors and inserted themselves into our genome in order to replicate (which usually isn't passed on): https://theconversation.com/humans-are-8-virus-how-the-ancient-viral-dna-in-your-genome-plays-a-role-in-human-disease-and-development-192322 https://theconversation.com/humans-are-8-virus-how-the-ancie...
- mysterypie 2y ago> The first occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, when an archaea swallowed a bacterium that became the mitochondria. The second time happened about 1.6 billion years ago, when cells absorbed cyanobacteria that became chloroplasts. How was it possible that I could take 3 years of high school biology and not have heard that one lifeform absorbing another lifeform was responsible for these amazing new capabilities? We learned about mitochondria and chloroplasts, but in a very dry way. Primary education could be so much more interesting to kids with context like this.
- stevenwoo 2y agoPossibly you took biology before this was well known? I think they just have that mitochondria theory from the fossil record and DNA matching between current eukaryotic life.
- mr_toad 2y agoThe idea (Symbiogenesis) dates back to the start of last century, and it was a common idea by the seventies. Curricula can move slowly, but I’d expect that it would have been taught in the eighties. Then again it’s evolution, no way around it, so I can imagine some teachers and schools might omit the theory.
- kuhewa 2y agoYou need some pretty advanced genetic and phylogenetic work to put meat on the bones of the theory though and that happened recently
- graemep 2y agoI am not sure from what point of view you are saying that, but I came across an interesting twist to that. Some years ago I read a fascinating book about evolution, mostly explaining things that do not get taught in school. No surprise there is a lot - school level teaching in any subject is usually simplified and incomplete so not entirely accurate compared to what researchers in the field are studying. There was an interesting, and disturbing preface. One of the authors said his colleagues tried to persuade him not to write the book, because explaining to a wide audience that what they were taught in school about evolution was a simplified approximation (essentially obsolete) would encourage creationism. I thought at the time that this was both unethical and likely to backfire. As I said in another recent comment, a creationist I know recently sent me links to arguments for creationism on the Jehovah's Witnesses' website, and they did precisely this. Quote from research to show people what they were told was false. If you are not truthful people will not trust you, if people in a field are not truthful people in the field loses credibility in the eyes for many people. How difficult is it to tell kids that they are being taught a simplified version, and here is a rough outline of the complexities, but it is beyond what can be taught at their level? I see similar things all over the place, with well meaning people pushing bad evidence for things (e.g. climate change). Same problem when people realise an argument is flawed, or a particular theory or model is flawed, they assume all arguments are flawed.
- yosito 2y agoThe headline makes it sound like this happened last week, but it actually happened 100 million years ago, and we're just now discovering it.
- Zenzero 2y agoIt could have also happened last week.
- Razengan 2y agowow and I just bookmarked this in the News folder
- neuronic 2y agoIt's still news to you...
- biorach 2y ago100 million years ago is pretty much the equivalent of last week on an evolutionary timescale.
- renonce 2y agoOnly if you are a 45-week old baby
- Mr_Minderbinder 2y agoPerhaps 100,000 years is a better analogy for a week in evolution. A lot can happen in 100 million years of evolution. The boreoeutherian ancestor, that is the ancestor of all humans, rodents, carnivores, cetaceans and more was alive roughly that many years ago.
- OJFord 2y agoAh, thank you, I was suspicious thinking what are the chances they would just happen to be watching something microscopic when such a rare thing occurs... So, since the article didn't mention it, presumably nothing interesting happened as a result? Yet?
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011438
- gjvc 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lamontcg 2y agoSeems the N2-fixation is limited by CO2-fixation. Be a bit weird if it wasn't and they sucked all the N2 out of the atmosphere. Atmosphere would get a bit spicy and flammable.
- adastra22 2y agoWhy? Partial pressures are what matters. If N2 was sucked out of the atmosphere, not much would change.
- lamontcg 2y agohttps://space.stackexchange.com/a/5694/14420 https://space.stackexchange.com/a/5694/14420
- adastra22 2y agoI worked for NASA. That answer is wrong. The ISS and Space Shuttle have standard 15 psi atmosphere for abort-to-Earth situations, not for any reasons related to fire. A 3 psi oxygen atmosphere has exactly the same fire risk as a 15 psi atmosphere with inert gas making up the rest. Chemically, partial pressure is all that matters. Apollo 1 had an over 15 psi pure oxygen atmosphere.
- kaba0 2y agoFavor composition over inheritance.
- sethammons 2y ago> It appears that this began to evolve around 100 million years ago, which sounds like an incredibly long time but is a blink of an eye compared to mitochondria and chloroplasts. From the title, I assumed they saw the genius of this extremely rare event. Very new in terms of life on Earth, but not something that first happened this year.
- methuselah_in 2y agoWell not far when plastic will be part of your blood stream and new organisms will eat it as well
- hgo 2y agoHere's an interesting video about a type of Maize that can also create its own "bound" Nitrogen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyd-kC6IUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyd-kC6IUw
- bithead 2y agoIf other plants get in to this ability it could revolutionize agriculture. Also, will tank the fertilizer industry.
- abrookewood 2y agoWho new science could be so humorous: "Imagine if kidneys were actually little animals running around, and humans had to manually filter their blood through a dialysis machine. Then one day some guy somehow gets one of these kidney critters stuck... Internally (who are we to judge how?)"