[HN Gopher] New species of methane-producing archaea discovered ...
___________________________________________________________________
New species of methane-producing archaea discovered in the human
gut
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 58 points
Date : 2025-04-30 22:09 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| vincekerrazzi wrote:
| I love seeing this kind of thing posted but it's not surprising
| in the slightest. We're forever discovering brew bacteria in our
| guts that are apparently unique. When I had my gut bacteria
| tested a full 20% of what I had hadn't been named yet, and some
| possibly hadn't been seen before.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I find it shocking and disturbing that we know so little about
| our own biology we are still discovering such things.
|
| It's like doctors didn't have centuries to examine human bodies
| to learn from them.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It is not just the human body. Mysterious bacteria that
| people don't know how to cultivate in isolation are
| _everywhere_. Part of the story is that many bacteria don 't
| really live alone but they depend on a plant or an animal or
| even other bacteria such as one species of large rod bacteria
| that has a different species of little rod bacteria that live
| on it, biofilms, etc.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It is not just the human body.
|
| I know, but I would expect doctors would, by know, not be
| so frequently surprised by things lurking in their own
| bodies.
|
| Not that long ago a never before observed structure every
| human always had was discovered:
| https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-say-
| they-...
| pfdietz wrote:
| One disturbing recent discovery is that a strain of E. coli
| produces a genotoxin, colibactin, that could be the cause of
| the doubling in colon cancer among those under age 55 in the
| last 20 years.
|
| https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/01/gut-bacteria-may-
| play...
| m3047 wrote:
| How many people took Zantac (ranitidine) the highly spammed
| H2 blocker? https://www.nfcr.org/blog/3-common-heartburn-
| drugs-are-assoc...
|
| Doctors don't ask about this. People still take Prilosec,
| and it's acknowledged that it causes cancer. You get what
| you give: confirmation bias.
|
| Edit: The essential problem is that ranitidine isn't shelf-
| stable. This could explain some problems with other
| theraputics which we won't name to avoid downvoting /
| politics.
| olau wrote:
| Biology is so complex that extremely little is known about
| details. Grab a college textbook on introduction to zoology,
| and prepare to be blown away.
| parasti wrote:
| Why do you find it shocking and disturbing? If you go to the
| doctor, the average process of diagnosis and treatment is
| much like printf debugging - just sprinkle some based on
| instinct and run it again. We're surrounded by technological
| advancement that is making us feel like we're far in the
| future, but there's still so much we don't know.
| mmooss wrote:
| Archaea are not bacteria; that's why this discovery is so
| significant.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| > The discovery of Methanobrevibacter intestini and GRAZ-2 opens
| up a new chapter in archaea research as well as new perspectives
| for personalized microbiome medicine in the future.
|
| It advances research, but personalized microbiome research seems
| a stretch goal. At least, it doesn't sound like it's likely to
| happen soon.
| leephillips wrote:
| You can blame the dog if you want to. I'm blaming
| Methanobrevibacter intestini sp. nov. (strain WWM1085).
| wonderwonder wrote:
| we are not even individuals, we are just walking cities of cells.
| We are Chimera.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| This is perhaps what amazes me the most. We're each a Borg, we
| are a collective that has adapted the biological
| distinctiveness of bacteria that we've assimilated into a
| collective that "thinks." Pretty wild. That we gather in groups
| and act collectively just adds another layer of recursion to
| life.
| johnea wrote:
| The original source article:
|
| https://microbiologysociety.org/news/press-releases/new-spec...
|
| Which also works without javascript or cookies, unlike phys.org
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-05-02 23:02 UTC)