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The First Animal Ever Found That Doesn't Need Oxygen to Survive
- talideon 2y agoAn interesting thing about these is that they may have started as cancer cells that escaped their original host jellyfish.
- kevinmchugh 2y agoWow, I never knew that could happen! Are there other examples or a name for this phenomenon?
- swayvil 2y agoGood scifi. We need Egan or Hughes to do it up. It's like Battlestar Galactica, except with cellular stuff.
- pfdietz 2y agoMaybe a cheery tale from Peter Watts?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- snovv_crash 2y agoThere are contagious cancers that you can catch via blood transfer. This has wiped out most of Australia's Tasmanian Devil population.
- astrobe_ 2y agoThat's surprising. Why doesn't the HLA system work in this case ?
- roywiggins 2y agoGenetic bottleneck, they don't have enough genetic diversity to recognize the cancer cells as foreign.
- ethbr1 2y agoBy most, parent means 80% species die-off rates. :( Disclaimer: sad pictures of extreme facial tumors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease
- acyou 2y agoThe article says that there is a gene for resistance to that cancer already present in the Tasmanian Devil genome. It's a fascinating mechanism. Wonder if it evolved related to overpopulation?
- roywiggins 2y agoThe likely reason the cancer is transmittable at all is due to underpopulation/genetic bottleneck. Animal immune systems usually have no problem recognizing and destroying cells from other individuals, even cancerous ones, but you need sufficiently distinct immune markers on your cells for them to recognize as "foreign."
- failrate 2y agoImmortal sexually transmitted canine cancer.
- card_zero 2y agoHa! Plucky little tumors.
- mattpavelle 2y agoAs noted in the article, the discovery is from 2020: https://english.tau.ac.il/news/no_oxygen https://english.tau.ac.il/news/no_oxygen Funny that this article from 21 June 2024 is the one finally gaining traction.
- bradleykingz 2y ago[dead]
- throwaway062324 2y agoWhy do we keep acting like we know what the requirements for life are? Those we look to for insight on this are most entrenched in socially accepted fallacies - oxygen is required, carbon is required, water is required.. and based on what evidence? We have a sample size of one - Earth. It's laughable that we're therefore so committed to defining requirements for life. We don't really understand the mechanism that spawns life, so we can't say we understand its requirements.
- dotnet00 2y agoIt's implied that what's being discussed by requirements is for life "as we know it".
- ricksunny 2y agoImplication is not explicit and therefore subject to each reader's interpretation. i.e. what seems to be implied to one's perspective may not actually be implied from all's perspective.
- dotnet00 2y agoThis kind of thing is implied in most science communication, every statement of fact has a "unless or until conflicting information is found" tied to it by common sense.
- blueflow 2y agoWe also know of the Great Oxidation Event [1], and that life on earth is older than that. Animals are recent-ish (~500mya) but single cell organisms that do not require oxygen must exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
- dotnet00 2y agoAnaerobic microorganisms do exist, but the article is talking about animals.
- robinduckett 2y agoThey look like someone asked an AI to draw “Alien Sperm”
- loonster 2y agoIt is amazing how different evolution trees converge on optimal configurations. It reminds me of crabs.
- jackdawipper 2y agoironic, because crabs remind me of bad choices made when drunk involving aliens
- bluenose69 2y agoUm, are my eyes deceiving me, or did I read e.g. * "Multicellular life needs oxygen to live." * "They break down oxygen to produce a molecule called adenosine triphosphate..."
- pfdietz 2y agoThere have been plenty of eukaryotes found earlier, including multicellular metazoans (animals), with anaerobic metabolisms. They have organelles called hydrogenosomes, which are thought to have convergently evolved from mitochondria. So, I call bullshit on the title. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenosome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenosome
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- james-bcn 2y agoYes I think it must mean multicellular organism. I understand there are lots of unicellular organisms that don't use oxygen.
- pfdietz 2y agoEven with that proviso it's still wrong. These animals were found in 2010 to be living in a completely anoxic environment with 2.9 mM of sulfide(!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loricifera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loricifera
- karmakaze 2y agoLines up with this Nature 2010 article "Animals thrive without oxygen at sea bottom (Creatures found where only microbes and viruses were thought to survive.)"[0] which I don't have access to. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/464825b https://www.nature.com/articles/464825b
- isoprophlex 2y agoSearching for YouTube videos of those anoxic, salt, toxic "brine lakes" is highly recommended. An alien sea within our oceans. Eg. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY
- SAI_Peregrinus 2y agoNot to mention plants (oxygen is a waste product for them), some fungi, etc. They're multicellular, but not animals.
- lukas099 2y agoThe cnidarians are a really interesting part of the animal kingdom. They “break all three rules”, like having single-celled animals, animals that are supposedly “immortal” if nothing kills them (certain jellyfish), and now this. I could see one of them becoming the next humans if we wipe ourselves out.
- klyrs 2y agoI generally root for cephalopoda in this regard.
- jmclnx 2y agoOne thing not mentioned, will these die quickly if not attached to its host ? I did a quick search but without luck.
- MostlyStable 2y agoIt says that they don't have mitochondrial DNA anymore, and that they can survive in very low oxygen environments....but neither of those is the same as "not needing oxygen". Parasites lose a lot of machinery that they use the host for (such as digestive tracts). Not needing oxygen would mean a pretty dramatic shift in a whole lot of biochemistry. Maybe that's exactly what has happened, but from this article, it sounds more like they evolved to tolerate very low oxygen, and also they use the host for a lot of necessary functions (common in parasites) and so have lost some unnecessary complexity.
- WhitneyLand 2y agoNo, it addresses that point. Paragraph 7 acknowledges it. Needs no oxygen at all.
- cpncrunch 2y agoNo, that is referring to other organisms. It neglects to mention how this particular one survives.
- WhitneyLand 2y agoNo what? Paragraph 7 acknowledges what the parent comment mentioned, that other species use very little oxygen. The title says this one needs none. The 2nd paragraph says: “…it doesn't breathe; in fact, it lives its life completely free of oxygen dependency.” If that’s not enough, it’s also made clear in Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henneguya_zschokkei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henneguya_zschokkei
- cpncrunch 2y agoYes indeed, other species, as per my comment, but it doesnt mention how this species does it.
- slantaclaus 2y ago
- newzisforsukas 2y agoOriginal paper (2020): https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909907117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909907117
- seangrogg 2y ago> The research was published in PNAS Between this and the images I realize that I can still be mentally 12 at times. By ditching the need for oxygen I wonder what these critters use for energy? I'd imagine their parasitism is related...
- damhsa 2y ago[flagged]
- m3kw9 2y agoHuman ego at its finest. If we can’t do it, nobody in the universe can. I’m loving the humbling
- elamje 2y agoMost people don’t know that there are species that can, e.g. drop their metabolic rate down to .01% of baseline to survive without water or food for 30 yrs. Or survive in high radiation environments, or high pressure and temperature environments. More people should know that there is genetic precedent for crazy phenotypes that could theoretically extend to other species in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade
- snovv_crash 2y agoTuberculosis has an alternative metabolism that allows it to survive even encased in an oxygen -free environment that the immune system puts around it, called granulomas. There are 2000y old mummies with granulomas in their lungs that were found to still contain live tuberculosis.
- pyuser583 2y agoAre you certain about the 2000 year dating? I curious because the mummification process changed drastically over time, and during the early Roman period was much less elaborate than 1000 years earlier.
- inSenCite 2y agoThese look like lil tiny Meeseeks
- johnea 2y ago"no one wants to buy salmon riddled with tiny weird jellyfish" A really interesting article, but I'm not sure if that statement above is really universaly true. In Japan they'd probably make sushi out of them... 8-)
- peter_d_sherman 2y ago>"In 2020, scientists discovered a jellyfish-like parasite [common salmon parasite called Henneguya salminicola] that doesn't have a mitochondrial genome – the first multicellular organism ever found with such an absence. That means it doesn't breathe; in fact, it lives its life completely free of oxygen dependency. [...] It's a cnidarian, belonging to the same phylum as corals, jellyfish, and anemones. Although the cysts it creates in the fish's flesh are unsightly, the parasites are not harmful, and will live with the salmon for its entire life cycle. Tucked away inside its host, the tiny cnidarian can survive quite hypoxic [oxygen deficient] conditions." This sounds like a very interesting candidate organism to bring to Mars in the future...