[HN Gopher] Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled fro...
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Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the
sea (2020)
Author : wombatmobile
Score : 114 points
Date : 2021-01-18 12:16 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencemag.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencemag.org)
| kitd wrote:
| I wonder if they could similarly survive on, say, comets or
| asteroids.
| naruhodo wrote:
| I wonder if we'll find their ilk on Mars.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It is a popular theory that that's how life on earth started;
| the google term is panspermia iirc.
| imeron wrote:
| And how did life start on the asteroid? :D
| phy6 wrote:
| My dear friend, it's asteroids all the way up!
| nayaketo wrote:
| By similarly frozen microbes from other asteroids of
| course.
| thearn4 wrote:
| Maybe life originated during the habitable epoch in the
| very early, very small universe and spread from there?
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613
| wongarsu wrote:
| The idea is that life starts on one planet and can spread
| from there to other planets (for example on rocks ejected
| through volcanic activity). We have found Martian rock on
| earth [1]
|
| 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite
| croon wrote:
| I think the intended point was "and before that?".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| God doesn't solve that issue, for identical reasons.
| wongarsu wrote:
| We don't really know. But if life started through some
| extremely lucky event like lightning repeatedly hitting
| just the right collection of particles in an early
| planet's ocean, then panspermia gives you a plausible
| mechanism how this happening just once in a galaxy could
| still lead to multiple planets having life (and maybe one
| of them developing into intelligent life that can ask
| itself how this happened). It opens up the number of
| possible timelines for the development of life because it
| allows our evolutionary heritage to be older than our
| planet alone allows for.
| croon wrote:
| I don't want to derail anything. Also disclaimer that I'm
| not religious.
|
| Off topic: This reminds me of what annoys me about
| "Intelligent Design" vs science.
|
| It's always about how the Earth is 6000 years old,
| he/she/they created all animals separately with no
| evolution, etc, etc.
|
| And likewise what came before the big bang? Ultra dense,
| hot steady state? And before that?
|
| While If I were any denominational god, I'd have created
| the rule set and frameworks for the entire system and then
| boot it up.
|
| Why can't "god" have created the big bang, evolution, the
| physics ruleset and just let it play out?
|
| Of course we'll never get the answer to any of that before
| (or not) the inevitable event horizon of death, but I don't
| get the antagonism within the evangelical movement... other
| than the obvious loss of power to secularity and
| science/agnosticism.
|
| End of rant.
| Udo wrote:
| _> It 's always about how the Earth is 6000 years old
| [...] And likewise what came before the big bang?_
|
| The mistake here is to treat both of these equally. One
| is a set of very specific but unsubstantiated claims
| about the nature of the universe, and the other is a
| scientific theory supported by observation and models.
| Since it is way easier to churn out unsubstantiated
| claims than viable scientific theories, relying on a
| mindset that gives equal consideration to everything is a
| surefire way for science to be simply drowned out.
|
| In this specific case, I'd also like to point out that
| the big bang model does not claim to yield, or is
| required to yield, information on what came "before".
| There are multiple hypotheses around for what could have
| happened, a fundamental part of which is usually a proper
| definition of what "before" means in this context. Again,
| none of these are doctrinal claims, they're just a
| process of finding out more about the universe. Religious
| claims on the other hand are a method of asserting you
| already know something.
|
| _> While If I were any denominational god, I 'd have
| created the rule set and frameworks for the entire system
| and then boot it up._
|
| Consider that most religions want people to behave in
| very specific ways, mostly because deities and their
| spokespeople say so. The "god" you are describing does
| not fit into that. You are being very charitable towards
| religious claims by allowing them to retreat into this
| generic fold.
|
| On a scientific level, your hypothesis is not immediately
| contradicted by observation. But it's also not clear how
| an unsupervised universe would be different from a
| curated one. If it doesn't really matter to the outcome
| whether the universe was created intentionally or not, a
| good bet is to assume the simpler model.
|
| Any such god would themselves have to exist in order to
| create a universe. They would presumably also have to
| have had a creator themselves, or have come into
| existence by natural means. This pushes the problem of
| the origin of the universe up the chain without
| necessarily resolving anything. It's not impossible that
| the universe is such a stack of simulations, and I'd
| argue it's worth looking into that, but it's not a
| solution to the question what the root of existence
| itself is.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > It's not impossible that the universe is such a stack
| of simulations, and I'd argue it's worth looking into
| that, but it's not a solution to the question what the
| root of existence itself is.
|
| I agree with rest of your comment except the above quoted
| line. I'd argue its a casual display of hubris that the
| universe can be hypothesized as a simulation rather than
| perhaps acknowledging we are reaching the limits of what
| we can percieve.
|
| To that end, we have very little insight into many
| things. We still dont know whether light is a wave or
| particle or both or neither. I find it a leap of logic to
| jump from there to _the universe might be a simulation_
| which in a sense, it already is since perception is a
| result of our brains turning those same photons we have
| questions about into informtion by electro-biochemical
| processes. Do you not think there would be hard limits to
| such a fragile system?
| croon wrote:
| > The mistake here is to treat both of these equally.
|
| Oh, I absolutely am not, or at least did not aim to. I'm
| well aware that I don't have to explain where an egg came
| from just because I'm stating a chicken came out of it.
|
| > Consider that most religions want people to behave in
| very specific ways, mostly because deities and their
| spokespeople say so. The "god" you are describing does
| not fit into that.
|
| Sorry, yes, I meant nondenominational.
|
| I don't disagree with anything you wrote, and did not
| intend to convey anything contradicting to that.
| Udo wrote:
| _> Sorry, yes, I meant nondenominational._
|
| I know, and actually that's how I assumed/read it.
|
| I think we both agree that nondenominational deities are
| not religious material (by definition). They have a
| certain appeal because they don't immediately contradict
| observation, but they're currently just as impossible to
| prove as, say, any of the Christian god variants. I'd
| argue it's a mistake to postulate non-religious gods but
| allow religious claims to take shelter in them, on
| account of some perceived common property.
|
| It's true that making a "god" more generic increases the
| likelihood of existence, on a statistical level. But our
| scientific models do fine without any supernatural
| consideration at all right now. I would argue to keep it
| that way until we actually see supernatural agency at
| work. Until then there is not really a reason or need for
| it.
| croon wrote:
| You are probably right, but as someone who grew up
| episcopalian, and struggled a lot assembling a coherent
| world view, I do see (even if only psychological) the
| potential need for deity at the edges of the explained.
|
| Someone might be able to explain the evolutionary
| benefits of existentialism, depression (or the benefits
| of the traits that when lacking lead to it, and how),
| philosophical meanderings when it would be more
| beneficial for me to work right now, and pre-bang
| existence, etc.
|
| But even if not, I can't oppose your assertion that it
| serves no tangible purpose to award credit to some
| unnamed force. But it could at least be a comforting
| placeholder for when something more tangible comes along.
| Or a tea pot.
| amelius wrote:
| Still, science can't explain why we are aware of the
| universe (i.e. we're not philosophical zombies).
| Udo wrote:
| The concept of consciousness in a philosophical sense is
| not scientific to begin with, hence it's not really
| possible for science to offer an explanation that would
| satisfy you. Science has the tools to explain any
| physical process, such as how you receive and process
| information. It cannot offer a philosophical "why" or
| convey how your feeling that you're not a philosphical
| zombie is valid (in fact I argue that it's not valid).
| netsharc wrote:
| If this were a simulation, it would be interesting if the
| operator can just freeze stuff and rewind, like a VM
| being restored to a snapshot, our brains would have no
| memory of having lived e.g. to the year 2022 and that
| we've been rewound to this point.
|
| And imagine changing physics constants and booting a new
| instance just to try something out. It would be more
| interesting to freeze the system, change a constant and
| see how it would've propagated from boot to present, and
| to apply the patch (not that the operator would care
| about preserving their sims). I suppose in a different
| universe, a stronger gravity could've meant an ancestor
| hit the ground a bit harder when s/he fell off a roof and
| didn't survive, so I might not even be here.
| tlholaday wrote:
| > ... before ...
|
| Note that "before" and "after" are arguably illusions,
| stemming from your sublight velocity. From the
| perspective of a photon, no time has passed "since" the
| Big Bang.
| chrisacky wrote:
| Can I quote Matrix?
|
| Anyway, the Matrix counterpoint (as explained by the
| Agent to Morpheus) was that the original Matrix was a
| perfect world. No famine, no poverty, everything was
| perfect, but the captive humans minds couldn't cope with
| such perfection, there had to be disorder for the
| environment to self-regulate and the original Matrix
| collapsed.
| prebrov wrote:
| There are multiple creationist theories. The one you
| described is close to sanctioned Roman Catholic view, for
| example.
|
| Since _Humani Generis_ by Pope Pius XII, the accepted
| view is that evolution, indeed, goes as it does, under
| divine supervision, and then when bodies reached a form
| fitting the pinnacle of creation (human), another act of
| creation occurred - that of human soul. And that miracle
| of creation keeps happening daily for every human born
| (or conceived?).
|
| So, definitely not a Darwinian materialist view, but
| certainly evolution-friendly.
|
| Generally, largest blocker to marrying salvation
| religions and materialist worldview is with a human.
| Salvation only concerns humans, and that implies that
| humans are very special in the Universe. Paganism wasn't
| that arrogant, so might be more compatible with
| scientific method, funnily enough.
|
| I'm an atheist, so this, naturally, this is my
| interpretation of other interpretations I've read and
| heard here and there.
| 24gttghh wrote:
| I still lean towards something along the lines of The Miller-
| Urey experiment[0]. There are many very interesting
| theories[1].
|
| But who is to say it isn't a combination of both? The
| question would be, from whence did the life on comets/extra-
| terrestrial bodies originate?
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experime
| nt
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
| kitd wrote:
| Yeah, that's kind of where I was leading ;)
| anothernewdude wrote:
| Don't know why anyone would post a medium blog post. Seriously.
|
| https://archive.is/2h7Nf
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Ignorance. Thanks.
| SeanFerree wrote:
| So much of the ocean is unexplored. I love to see stuff like this
| jug wrote:
| Microbes Sleeping 100M Years on the Ocean Floor WERE
| INTENTIONALLY Awakened
|
| Move along if you expected this to be a story on climate change
| effects.
| coldtea wrote:
| Well, it still has ties and insight useful to apply to the non-
| intentional case of awakening of similar microbes due to
| climate change effects...
| zby wrote:
| I expected it to be about Cthulhu.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| I had absolutely zero idea what you were talking about and
| googling it sent me down a very deep and entertaining rabbit
| hole!
| ehnto wrote:
| I am astounded and delighted you could have wandered
| through life and never encountered a reference to Cthulhu.
| Have fun!
| kleiba wrote:
| Mandatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/1053/
| ascotan wrote:
| Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from
| beneath the sea with this weird trick
|
| https://xkcd.com/1283/
| herodoturtle wrote:
| This is such a legend attitude to adopt. These comments
| here were awesome to read.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Hello
| kleiba wrote:
| _> Microbes Sleeping 100M Years on the Ocean Floor WERE
| INTENTIONALLY Awakened_
|
| You maniacs!!! Have you _never_ watched any sci-fi horror movie
| _at all_???
| pp19dd wrote:
| "Genetic analysis of the microbes revealed they belonged to
| more than eight known bacterial groups, many of which are
| commonly found elsewhere in saltwater where they play important
| roles in breaking down organic matter. "
| yters wrote:
| So can we reevolve dinosaurs now?
| hinkley wrote:
| Later there's running, and screaming...
| hexo wrote:
| Login required? Why why why? Could someone copypasta the site
| somewhere login-less, pretty please?
| mastazi wrote:
| Archive link
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210113211350/https://charliest...
|
| Edit - even on the Archive page, there is a weird issue where
| the page keeps refreshing every few seconds, I have found out
| that hitting ctrl-s / cmd-s (as if you intended to save the
| page locally) stops the page from refreshing.
| hexo wrote:
| Thanks a lot!
| ElectricMind wrote:
| Good Lord, haven't we had enough of Corona or you want new
| virus?!
| pluc wrote:
| How about Asia chills out playing with diseases for a little
| while
| danparsonson wrote:
| "...from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and
| Technology..." (from TFA)
| nathias wrote:
| "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons
| even death may die."
| rosmax_1337 wrote:
| My thoughts exactly, prepare for the end times as they have
| been foretold since the dawn of time.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Are the microbes themselves that old, or simply made of old
| material?
|
| Edit: quoting the article, it doesn't say the microbes themselves
| are 100M years old, only that they're in sediment which is that
| old. Big difference!
|
| "99.1% of the microbes in sediment deposited 101.5 million years
| ago were still alive and were ready to eat"
| coldtea wrote:
| > _quoting the article, it doesn 't say the microbes themselves
| are 100M years old, only that they're in sediment which is that
| old. Big difference!_
|
| Might be a difference towards them being even older then the
| sediment though...
| wombatmobile wrote:
| From the paper
|
| > Very low permeability (1.1-2.0 x 10-17 m2 for IODP Site U1365
| 4H-3 [26.6 meters below seafloor (mbsf)] and 8.9 x 10-18 m2 for
| IODP Site U1370 [37.5 mbsf], respectively), very low estimated
| pore size of the abyssal clay (~0.02 microns, calculated using
| above permeability data according to the equation shown in
| Tanikawa et al.), and thick porcellanite layers above the
| oldest sampled horizons appear to preclude cell migration into
| the sampled sediment. Consequently, the sampled communities
| have likely been trapped in the sediment since shortly after
| its deposition.
| saalweachter wrote:
| > Consequently, the sampled _communities_ have likely been
| trapped...
|
| That would seem to indicate they are talking about isolation
| rather than preservation of individual microbes.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Yeah, its an super old colony living from itself in closed
| ecosystem, not super old individual cells.
| hinkley wrote:
| > appear to preclude cell migration into the sampled sediment
|
| appear to preclude = we don't know how it could
|
| 100 million years is a long, long time for bacteria to find a
| route past a barrier and migrate sideways through a more
| hospitable substrate.
|
| They found oxygen and decided that meant there was no
| oxidation (eating) going on. I wonder if they have any
| specialists on the team who would know specifically about
| permeability (the quoted person is a 'microbial ecologist',
| which sounds like it would know quite a few things about
| organic and inorganic chemistry, I don't expect they'd be an
| expert on geologic timescales. The way an architect in theory
| knows about physics of building materials but still gets into
| scraps with the general contractor.
| staplers wrote:
| I wonder if they have any specialists on the team who would
| know specifically about permeability
|
| Sounds like you're the expert, why don't you join them?
| hinkley wrote:
| It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind
| is blowing.
|
| I'm not the expert they need. I'm an expert in debugging.
| The tricky bit with debugging is, X can't happen, but X
| did happen. Magic did not cause this. Unless you have
| 1000 machines, cosmic rays probably didn't cause it
| either.
|
| "X can't happen" is actually "All of my assumptions say
| 'X cannot happen'". Therefore, one of your assumptions is
| wrong. Don't shrug and put it off on someone else. _start
| testing your assumptions_.
|
| In this case there's probably a PhD in testing that
| assumption. My question is, is that a future PhD or an
| existing one?
| hinkley wrote:
| I should also say that I'm invested in the idea that we
| could seed benthic microbes into the universe and that
| some day that would let us terraform Mars and Venus. That
| will not happen with magic thinking.
|
| I knew someone who believed in the paranormal. She got
| hooked in with a group of ghost hunters in Seattle who
| were trying to apply science to ghost hunting (similar to
| the Portland group that got that reality show. Apparently
| they sat around making fun of those people as a sub-
| hobby.) They didn't want to be made fools of by declaring
| something was paranormal that ended up being loose
| wiring. So they had a very long checklist of things they
| would look at. Often the house owner was told to call an
| electrician (loose wires in a wiring panel make you feel
| weird when standing on the other side of the wall) or
| occasionally an HVAC specialist.
|
| Practically speaking, they ended up being a ghost
| debunking group, hoping that one day they'd find
| something truly inexplicable. Discussions like this tend
| to remind me of that group.
| tomcam wrote:
| The web in a nutshell. Your story reminds me of one of
| the early, lighthearted episodes of the X-Files.
| hinkley wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Have you seen Room 1408? Cusack plays a cynical ghost
| hunter who finds a deeply complex haunting. I won't spoil
| the ending, but at a moment where inexplicable things are
| piling up, he assumes instead that he's been given a
| hallucinogen in a gift.
|
| Decent movie, total waste of Samuel L Jackson though. I
| think he got paid to sit around the set snacking on the
| buffet.
| esquire_900 wrote:
| > we found that up to 99.1% of the microbes in sediment deposited
| 101.5 million years ago were still alive and were ready to eat
|
| > But the real secret of their remarkable survival lies in their
| metabolic rate. It is just slow enough for them to survive for
| such long periods.
|
| That would imply their metabolic rate to be practically zero, 101
| million years is such a long time that even the tiniest amount of
| activity would result in a depletion of resources. Does that mean
| they die, only to come back to live at a better time?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I with my phone had that kind of low power mode - asleep for
| millions of years, yet ready to wake up when needed
| Ovah wrote:
| And DNA appears to have a half-life of 521 years. 101 million
| years is 194 817 half-lifes. Assuming the research is sound I
| wonder how the bacteria get around that limit.
| fpoling wrote:
| The stability of any complex organic molecule depends very
| strongly on the temperature, acidity, presence of other
| components etc. Without reference to the precise conditions
| the number is meaningless.
| excannuck wrote:
| I'd expect DNA's half life would depend on the environmental
| conditions. The conditions on the surface of the earth and at
| the bottom of the ocean are vastly different.
|
| DNA stabilizing:
|
| Much lower T (below 0C) Practically no radiation (an ocean
| above you blocking it all)
|
| DNA de-stabilizing: Corrosive chemicals spewing from a nearby
| volcano (but only if one is near you!) Radiation from said
| volcano and rocks (but they'd have to be closer still, due to
| shielding from the water)
|
| So unless the 500 year half life is the "self-damaging" rate,
| I'd expect DNA at the bottom to last much longer.
| patall wrote:
| No, DNA does not have a half-life of 521 years. To give the
| correct citation: ''' By analysing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
| from 158 radiocarbon-dated bones of the extinct New Zealand
| moa, we confirm empirically a long-hypothesized exponential
| decay relationship. The average DNA half-life within this
| geographically constrained fossil assemblage was estimated to
| be 521 years for a 242 bp mtDNA sequence, corresponding to a
| per nucleotide fragmentation rate (k) of 5.50 x 10-6 per
| year. With an effective burial temperature of 13.1degC, the
| rate is almost 400 times slower than predicted from published
| kinetic data of in vitro DNA depurination at pH 5. ''' from h
| ttps://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.174..
| .
|
| Or in laymens words: the half-life of a DNA molecule per
| nucleotide depends on the environment and is in the order of
| magnitude around 1 million years. Else, we would not have any
| ancient genomes by now.
| Ovah wrote:
| Thank you. Yeah you hit the nail on its head: it's the
| environmental conditions that matter. Still it's impressive
| that a single whole genome has remained largely intact for
| 100M years or else the cell would not be able to replicate.
| However for the sequencing of ancient genomes no single
| genome has to be intact as fragments of many cells can be
| computationally pieced together into a complete template
| genome.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| At those timescales you'd think they would have ceased to exist
| due to atomic half-life or radiation or something.
| [deleted]
| nkrisc wrote:
| Only if they were primarily made up of radioactive isotopes.
| Ask the carbon-12 in them should remain stable.
| ryanschneider wrote:
| > were ready to eat
|
| Am I the only one who pictured the lab workers munching on 100M
| year old microbe colonies?
| ballenf wrote:
| And you just made me picture a store bought "ready-to-eat"
| meal as a terrifying and hungry creature waiting for me to
| wake it up.
| hinkley wrote:
| Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
| kitd wrote:
| I wondered that too. "Die" implies not just metabolic rate
| going to zero, but also cells "disassembling" too
| ("decomposing" feels a bit large-scale in this context).
|
| It did say that there were microscopic amounts of oxygen in the
| sediment. Presumably, that was enough to maintain a minimally-
| small MR.
| londons_explore wrote:
| As they were buried deeper and deeper in the sediment,
| presumably oxygen levels fell lower and lower.
|
| That will have caused selective pressure to manage to survive
| with so few resources. Those that can't simply become energy
| for others who can.
| coliveira wrote:
| There are cells that don't need oxygen to survive. The fact
| that there is no oxygen in the environment doesn't mean
| that certain forms of bacteria cannot survive.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > The presence of dissolved O2, nitrate (NO3-), phosphate
| (PO4-), and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) throughout the
| sedimentary sequence from the seafloor to the volcanic
| basement indicates that cell abundance and activity are not
| limited by availability of electron acceptors or dissolved
| major inorganic nutrients. From the Redfield stoichiometry of
| net dissolved O2 reduction to net nitrate production in the
| sediment, the microbial cells have been inferred to consume
| oxygen coupled to oxidation of marine organic matter at
| extremely slow rates.
|
| -- D'Hondt, S. et al. Presence of oxygen and aerobic
| communities from sea floor to basement in deep-sea sediments.
| Nature Geosci. 8, 299-304 (2015).
| boringg wrote:
| Life rarely fails to astound.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You clearly don't have my life.
| metafunctor wrote:
| Original paper (July 2020) which TFA is based on:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1
| cascom wrote:
| Pretty sure this how the beginning of a horror/zombie movie
| starts
| T-A wrote:
| A better link (actual paper aside):
|
| https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/scientists-pull-livi...
| kseistrup wrote:
| Actual paper:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1
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