Wow! Biologists seem to have discovered an entirely new kind of life form. They're called 'obelisks', and you probably have some in you.
They were discovered in 2024 - not by somebody actually seeing one, but by analyzing huge amounts of genetic data from the human gut. This search found 29,959 new RNA sequences, completely different from any known. Thus, we don't know where these things fit into the tree of life!
Biologists found them when they were trying to solve a puzzle. Even smaller than viruses, there exist 'viroids' that are just loops of RNA that cleverly manage to reproduce using the machinery of the cell they infect. Viruses have a protein coat. Viroids are just bare RNA - it doesn't even code for any proteins!
But all known viroids only infect plants. The first one found causes a disease in potatoes; another causes a disease in avocados, and so on. This raised the puzzle: why aren't there viroids that infect bacteria, or animals?
Now perhaps we've found them! But not quite: while obelisks may work in a similar way, they seem genetically unrelated. Also, their RNA seems to code for two proteins.
Given how little we know about this stuff, I think some caution is in order. Still, this is really cool. Do any of you biologists out there know any research going on now to learn more?
The original paper is free to read on the bioRxiv:
β’ Viroid-like colonists of human microbiomes, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.20.576352v1.full
I see just one other paper, about an automated system for detecting obelisks:
β’ Tormentor: An obelisk prediction and annotation pipeline, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.30.596730v1.full
There's also a budding Wikipedia article on obelisks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk_(biology)
Hat-tip to @metaweta.
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@johncarlosbaez neat! "there are more things on heaven and earth ...." and all that. I love that there is so much for us to still learn.
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cc @ramesh19999
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta cues Also sprach Zarathustra
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@RinostarGames @johncarlosbaez @metaweta
"It's full of obelisks!"
The movie had it backwards, it would seem.
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Eventually we will realize/remember that each one of us is a GOD to our own body which is actually an entire living structure of entities and beings that we are in control of AS THEIR GOD. Our only purpose being to help our individual kingdoms survive while we CARETAKE FOR THE PLANET.
@johncarlosbaez @metaweta
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@LaNaehForaday @johncarlosbaez @metaweta maybe the obelisks are the gods and are in control of us. They don't share our genetic material, so we are not in control of them genetically.
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@LaNaehForaday @johncarlosbaez @metaweta <matrix's agent Smith in front of Morpheus describing humans as a virus species because other mammals grow in harmony with their environment but not us>
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta I just love that they named it Tormentor
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@LivInTheLookingGlass @metaweta - does that mean something I'm not getting? (Pop culture reference?)
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta Obelisk The Tormentor was one of the "god cards" in YuGiOh. I loved that show when I was a kid. He's a big, blue, demon-looking thing
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@LivInTheLookingGlass - cool, thanks!
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta Should've called them Obelix.
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@johncarlosbaez
Wow! This could be either really big, or an artifact. Super interesting, but I'd wait for some independent confirmation.
@metaweta
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta
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@glaebhoerl @johncarlosbaez @metaweta
π₯
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@johncarlosbaez concerned potato noises
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta Exciting. Thereβs still so much to discover in our guts
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@johncarlosbaez
very cool.
there have been some really interesting discoveries in recent years.
some i've been intrigued by:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6034118/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-your-interstitium-a-newfound-organ/
[#]science #biology
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@rustoleumlove - there's someone in the math department I worked at who uses fancy computer simulations to study cells, and the motion of cells. I bet they know about "phase separation".
I'd never heard about the interstitium - thanks! It's kind of like having an organ called "the rest".
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@johncarlosbaez you're welcome!
and "the rest" - lol i like that
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@johncarlosbaez @rustoleumlove NPR had a long segment on it yesterday. The implications for cancer treatment are extreme.
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@Nazani @rustoleumlove - yes, I felt very proud that I'd heard about the interstitium on Mastodon before hearing about it on Radiolab. Still the radio show was informative. I'm curious about the theory that the interstitium could explain how acupuncture works, and perhaps make sense of the 'meridians' in traditional Chinese medicine, but it's a bit weird that the person pushing this theory is not a real expert on acupuncture.
https://radiolab.org/podcast/interstitium
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta its life Jim, but not as we know it
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta After all this time, weβre still finding new things in my gut. What a world, what a gut!
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta So that feeling in my gut was obelisks all along?
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta I'm 99% sure these will turn out to be Midi-Chlorians and George Lucas will be vindicated.
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@johncarlosbaez @metaweta
cool but "life form" is a stretch as they lack metabolism.
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@aachrisg @metaweta - as I said, I don't think demarcating the concept of 'life' that way is very useful. But if that's the definition you want, there's no way for me argue against that!
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text/gemini
