[HN Gopher] Strange, tentacled microbe may resemble ancestor of ...
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       Strange, tentacled microbe may resemble ancestor of complex life
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 93 points
       Date   : 2022-12-22 14:25 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.science.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
        
       | idlewords wrote:
       | One fact that still blows my mind is that into the 1990's, there
       | were something like 12,000 known prokaryotic species, and
       | microbiologists estimated anywhere from 100,000 to a million were
       | still undiscovered, since they didn't like to grow in a Petri
       | dish. But with the advent of PCR based techniques, that number
       | grew to _one trillion_. Not only whole new phyla but two entire
       | new branches of life (DPANN and CPR) were discovered in the early
       | 2000 's gold rush, and microbiology and mycology are still
       | struggling with how to classify and organize these organisms,
       | along with foundational questions like what 'known species' even
       | means. It's a pretty cool time to follow those fields.
       | 
       | tl;dr we failed to notice 99.999% of life on Earth until about
       | twenty years ago.
        
         | dejj wrote:
         | TIL a salt water spring at -5C temperature exists (and
         | extremophiles live in it):
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Heiberg_Island#Lost_Hamme...
        
         | random_ind_dude wrote:
         | > _A recent estimate of the global number of prokaryotic
         | species is 2.2-4.3 million [110], down from previous
         | potentially flawed estimates of trillions [111]_
         | 
         | From this Nature article:
         | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-021-00941-x
        
           | idlewords wrote:
           | See the cited paper by Locey and Lennon
           | (https://doi.org/10.1186/s13062-020-00261-8) for a
           | counterargument. The issue comes down to mathematical
           | modeling of biodiversity and microbiologists are fighting
           | about it. The fact that dozens of new phyla and two entire
           | branches of life were discovered in the past 20 years is not
           | disputed by either side.
           | 
           | A good backgrounder on this topic is "Assessing the global
           | phylum level diversity within the bacterial domain: A
           | review", https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jare.2014.10.005
        
       | wingely wrote:
       | Me: "Grandpapa, is that you?"
       | 
       | Tentacled microbe: ::Cthulhu noises::
        
         | wiz21c wrote:
         | Flying Tentacle Monster ?
        
       | ngoilapites wrote:
       | I finally start to see a clear story in the evolution of cell
       | types to complex life. Are there valuable adversary/competing
       | hypothesis?
        
       | wuiheerfoj wrote:
       | OT but a pretty filthy dark pattern for the cookie banner on
       | science.org - as I went to dismiss their newsletter popular on
       | mobile another one (presumably the 'allow cookies' popup) quickly
       | took its place so I'd click it.
       | 
       | Stuff like this really puts me off a site
        
       | andrewflnr wrote:
       | This article linked near the bottom is pretty interesting w.r.t.
       | the origin of eukaryotes. IANA biologist, but it seems to make a
       | pretty good case that taking on mitochondria led directly to a
       | lot of the other eukaryotic complexity. I wasn't previously
       | convinced why it couldn't have gone the other way.
       | https://elifesciences.org/articles/81033
        
         | lapitopi wrote:
         | This is the thesis of the book "The Vital Question" by Nick
         | Lane. It's a pretty interesting read. At points the book was
         | slightly beyond my reach in comprehension but I still enjoyed
         | it.
        
       | edgyquant wrote:
       | Is there anyway to know what the actual ancestor looked like?
       | Thanks to HGT isn't it pretty difficult to determine when a gene
       | entered the ancestral line?
        
         | Insanity wrote:
         | HGT?
        
           | pwr22 wrote:
           | Horizontal Gene Transfer, possibly?
        
             | edgyquant wrote:
             | Yes exactly
        
           | edgyquant wrote:
           | Horizontal Gene Transfer. Bacteria pass useful genes to one
           | another. think of it like a weird and simple form of talking:
           | if a bacteria enters a new environment and meets other
           | bacteria it "asks" the bacteria in the new environment for
           | useful genes. I'm definitely not doing this justice but it's
           | fascinating.
           | 
           | Anyway our high level understanding of mammalian/plant
           | evolution (or the ability to go back in time from it) doesn't
           | quite apply to bacteria.
        
         | tigerlily wrote:
         | Probably a mini Cthulhu or something
        
           | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
           | So, instead of Great Old Ones, we have Tiny Old Ones.
        
       | dtgriscom wrote:
       | Those aren't tentacles; tentacles are motile.
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-23 23:01 UTC)