7 ms·

Complex life forms existed 1.5B years earlier than believed, study finds

99 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rini17 2y ago
Is it possible to find their remnants in the genome? Since horizontal gene transfers happen other organisms that survived carried the information but perhaps it's too scrambled now.
warvariuc 2y ago
> Complex life forms existed 1.5B years earlier than believed I think it would be more correct to say "It's now believed that complex life forms existed 1.5B years earlier than believed earlier"
- astromaniak 2y ago
  So far no reasons to think so. The article lacks details. But for complex life to emerge in small pocket that oasis would have to exist for many millions of years. No proof of that. Then organism is not a bunch of single cellars in one place. This is another question here. Next there are intermediate forms of life which bundle together only for some time. This thing looks like single organism while it isn't.
- dboreham 2y ago
  Than previously believed.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
samstave 2y ago
Life doesn't emerge from the Universe. The Universe emerges from Life.
dTal 2y ago
Meta: Why are all the comment timestamps in this thread no older than 5 hours, when some comments are over a day old? You can verify this by looking at some user pages.
- atombender 2y ago
  The post may have been automatically put back on the front page as part of the second-chance pool: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/master/README.md#second-chance-pool https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m....
  - notheyarent 2y ago
    You will next be parroting from a book that the Russian and French revolutions were genuine uprisings by the people of those two countries. It is quite obvious both revolutions were set ups by external powers and attempts to genocide the populations of those countries. Lenin was just an actor. Lol “rejoin the struggle” you are such a brainlet
- gary_0 2y ago
  I'm not sure, but things tend to get a bit messed up when articles get reposted multiple times and then the moderators (namely dang) merge the comment threads into one. So that might be the reason.
umvi 2y ago
After watching the most recent smarter every day, I'm blown away with how complex the molecular machinery of even "simple life" like bacteria are. Proteins are just nuts - the ultimate building blocks for nano machines. Proton-powered rotating motors with gears for increasing torque... simply marvelous
lainga 2y ago
That would be funny! It would mean they emerged right after the Huronian icehouse period ended, in the same way the Cambrian Explosion happened right after the Cryogenian period ended. [] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth
- Qem 2y ago
  IIRC this was associated to an early, brief spike in atmospheric oxygen. It went up, fell, and then took about one gigayear to increase again to large sustained levels closer to what we have today. Large organisms have low area to volume ratios, and require a high level of oxygen to scale up while producing enough energy. See https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1674987112000898-gr1.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S16749871120008... Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987112000898 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S167498711...
  - frutiger 2y ago
    > while producing enough energy “while transforming enough energy” is both more accurate but also educates the lay reader by hinting at the processes involved.
MattPalmer1086 2y ago
If true, and complex life evolved more than once on the same planet, then it is much less likely as a strong candidate for the great filter [1]. So, very roughly, either life is hard to get started at all (but life started about as soon as possible on earth), intelligence is hard to evolve (although we see many species with intelligent behaviour, if not at human level), or it's in our future (that intelligent life tends to destroy itself). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
- bostonwalker 2y ago
  The evolutionary transition from single-celled to multicellular life has actually been repeatedly accomplished in vitro [1]. So highly unlikely to be a Great Filter. [1] https://archive.ph/1yCVn https://archive.ph/1yCVn
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    The study in the article suggests that these early multicellular organisms failed to take hold. So there was probably something needed that was missing. And it still took billions of years for complex live to emerge, whereas single celled life appeared almost immediately once the earth cooled down enough to have liquid water. Whether it took two billion years or 3.5 doesn't matter so much when you think of it as a potential filter.
- api 2y ago
  There are so many more possibilities. The entire topic of the Fermi paradox is a massive tower of assumptions and hidden variables for which we have no information. We don’t even know the paradox is real since we haven’t explored our own solar system enough to rule out aliens or artifacts of their visits in our back yard, nor can we rule out advanced observers intentionally not revealing themselves for any number of rational reasons. There could be an abandoned underground alien base on the Moon and we’d have no clue. We have barely gone anywhere. If we hit, say, the level of development in The Expanse and still find nothing (no protomolecule haha) then maybe we can say there is definitely a paradox. There’s also the assumption that there is a single discrete big and dramatic great filter. That’s the Hollywood version. In reality there could just be a continuous probability of failure due to any number of events whether endogenous or external spread across billions of years that amounts to a great filter. The probability per day of “biosphere failure” or some other condition that dooms a potential spacefaring intelligence doesn’t need to be high to amount to a probability near 1.0 over geological time scales. Let’s say given we are sending our probes and capsules we are probably at least 50% of the way there. If the cumulative great filter were near 1.0 probability of failure this would imply a 50/50 probability of our success. Those are of course made up round numbers just to illustrate how that would work. We have no way to know what the actual numbers are because we have a sample size of one. The whole thing is just speculation until we have more actual data.

99 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Is it possible to find their remnants in the genome? Since horizontal gene transfers happen other organisms that survived carried the information but perhaps it's too scrambled now.

warvariuc 2y ago

> Complex life forms existed 1.5B years earlier than believed I think it would be more correct to say "It's now believed that complex life forms existed 1.5B years earlier than believed earlier"

astromaniak 2y ago
So far no reasons to think so. The article lacks details. But for complex life to emerge in small pocket that oasis would have to exist for many millions of years. No proof of that. Then organism is not a bunch of single cellars in one place. This is another question here. Next there are intermediate forms of life which bundle together only for some time. This thing looks like single organism while it isn't.
dboreham 2y ago
Than previously believed.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

samstave 2y ago

Life doesn't emerge from the Universe. The Universe emerges from Life.

dTal 2y ago

Meta: Why are all the comment timestamps in this thread no older than 5 hours, when some comments are over a day old? You can verify this by looking at some user pages.

atombender 2y ago
The post may have been automatically put back on the front page as part of the second-chance pool: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/master/README.md#second-chance-pool https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m....
- notheyarent 2y ago
  You will next be parroting from a book that the Russian and French revolutions were genuine uprisings by the people of those two countries. It is quite obvious both revolutions were set ups by external powers and attempts to genocide the populations of those countries. Lenin was just an actor. Lol “rejoin the struggle” you are such a brainlet
gary_0 2y ago
I'm not sure, but things tend to get a bit messed up when articles get reposted multiple times and then the moderators (namely dang) merge the comment threads into one. So that might be the reason.

umvi 2y ago

After watching the most recent smarter every day, I'm blown away with how complex the molecular machinery of even "simple life" like bacteria are. Proteins are just nuts - the ultimate building blocks for nano machines. Proton-powered rotating motors with gears for increasing torque... simply marvelous

lainga 2y ago

That would be funny! It would mean they emerged right after the Huronian icehouse period ended, in the same way the Cambrian Explosion happened right after the Cryogenian period ended. [] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth

Qem 2y ago
IIRC this was associated to an early, brief spike in atmospheric oxygen. It went up, fell, and then took about one gigayear to increase again to large sustained levels closer to what we have today. Large organisms have low area to volume ratios, and require a high level of oxygen to scale up while producing enough energy. See https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1674987112000898-gr1.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S16749871120008... Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987112000898 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S167498711...
- frutiger 2y ago
  > while producing enough energy “while transforming enough energy” is both more accurate but also educates the lay reader by hinting at the processes involved.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago

If true, and complex life evolved more than once on the same planet, then it is much less likely as a strong candidate for the great filter [1]. So, very roughly, either life is hard to get started at all (but life started about as soon as possible on earth), intelligence is hard to evolve (although we see many species with intelligent behaviour, if not at human level), or it's in our future (that intelligent life tends to destroy itself). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

bostonwalker 2y ago
The evolutionary transition from single-celled to multicellular life has actually been repeatedly accomplished in vitro [1]. So highly unlikely to be a Great Filter. [1] https://archive.ph/1yCVn https://archive.ph/1yCVn
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  The study in the article suggests that these early multicellular organisms failed to take hold. So there was probably something needed that was missing. And it still took billions of years for complex live to emerge, whereas single celled life appeared almost immediately once the earth cooled down enough to have liquid water. Whether it took two billion years or 3.5 doesn't matter so much when you think of it as a potential filter.
api 2y ago
There are so many more possibilities. The entire topic of the Fermi paradox is a massive tower of assumptions and hidden variables for which we have no information. We don’t even know the paradox is real since we haven’t explored our own solar system enough to rule out aliens or artifacts of their visits in our back yard, nor can we rule out advanced observers intentionally not revealing themselves for any number of rational reasons. There could be an abandoned underground alien base on the Moon and we’d have no clue. We have barely gone anywhere. If we hit, say, the level of development in The Expanse and still find nothing (no protomolecule haha) then maybe we can say there is definitely a paradox. There’s also the assumption that there is a single discrete big and dramatic great filter. That’s the Hollywood version. In reality there could just be a continuous probability of failure due to any number of events whether endogenous or external spread across billions of years that amounts to a great filter. The probability per day of “biosphere failure” or some other condition that dooms a potential spacefaring intelligence doesn’t need to be high to amount to a probability near 1.0 over geological time scales. Let’s say given we are sending our probes and capsules we are probably at least 50% of the way there. If the cumulative great filter were near 1.0 probability of failure this would imply a 50/50 probability of our success. Those are of course made up round numbers just to illustrate how that would work. We have no way to know what the actual numbers are because we have a sample size of one. The whole thing is just speculation until we have more actual data.