[HN Gopher] Ushikuvirus: Newly discovered virus may offer clues ...
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Ushikuvirus: Newly discovered virus may offer clues to the origin
of eukaryotes
Author : rustoo
Score : 46 points
Date : 2026-01-08 04:39 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tus.ac.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tus.ac.jp)
| Chance-Device wrote:
| Incidentally, anyone know what is going on with this image -
| "Cryo-EM map of a center slice of the ushikuvirus particle":
| https://journals.asm.org/cms/10.1128/jvi.01206-25/asset/1357...
|
| It's one quarter of an image flipped horizontally and then
| vertically, you can see the patterns.
|
| It's a bit odd to do that? Shouldn't it just be the original EM
| image?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Rampant fraud in science papers has reached the point where
| hobbyists can point out obviously fake charts and graphics even
| in prestigious journals.
|
| Publish or perish needs to end.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| According to this article the image is computed and not really
| directly captured
| https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/explainer-what-is-cryo-e...
| observationist wrote:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104784772...
| - there are similar results in this paper, too.
|
| After a bit of digging - it looks like it's done to sharpen
| features as one of the standard steps in producing these
| images. Where there are rotational symmetries in the things
| they're looking at, they focus on the smallest unit, and then
| rotate accordingly. If you had a trilateral symmetry, or
| hexagonal structure, they'd rotate 3 or 6 times around the
| center.
|
| You're not getting a real image of the thing, but apparently
| it's got data from those other segments mixed in with the
| rotations, so you're getting a kind of idealized structure, to
| make the details being studied pop out, but if you have some
| sort of significant deviation, damage, or non symmetric feature
| it'll show up as well.
|
| It's called "imposed symmetry"
| https://discuss.cryosparc.com/t/what-is-actually-occuring-wh...
|
| Neat stuff, cool thing to catch!
| Bjartr wrote:
| I think that might just be the original and it simply is
| symmetrical to that degree. I found a few more examples of
| "cryo-em center slices" and I've yet to find one that doesn't
| have really strong symmetry down to the small dot patterns.
|
| A different paper, this figure shows a number of cryo-em
| images, including a simulation, and they all show the same
| degree of pattern symmetry
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Central-sections-through...
|
| First figure in this third paper also shows symmetry of small
| patterns https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jvi.00990-22
| Chance-Device wrote:
| Thanks, those examples make it pretty clear.
|
| I still think it's super weird that it looks exactly like an
| EM image, but is generated. Anyway, good to know!
| possiblelion wrote:
| Interesting, hope that these discoveries can be used to fight
| those amoeba's which cause infections as well!
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I remember someone talking about "last universal common ancestor"
| at some point, the single "origin of the cells" or something. Is
| that the same as the "archaeal ancestor" they're referring to
| here? And is the "archaeal ancestor" the same as the "Primitive
| archael cell" mentioned in the last image in the article?
| (https://www.tus.ac.jp/en/mediarelations/20251219_9539_03.png)
| Tagbert wrote:
| From what I know - There are two sister groups, the Archae and
| Bacteria. Their ancestor would be LUCA. The first Archae would
| be the archaeal ancestor. There should be a first bacteria to
| match that.
|
| I believe that Eukaryotes then from Archae.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I believe "archaeal cell" is referring to an Archaea, one of
| the three branches of life. All three branches derive from a
| more distant ancestor, LUCA. LUCA was undoubtedly preceded by
| other ancestors, but there is (by definition) nothing else
| branching from them that has survived.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I anticipate the definition will become increasingly
| subjective as we find biology-messiness inconsistent with our
| concepts of ancestry.
|
| For example, suppose horizontal gene transfer occurs from
| organism X to organism Y. Does that mean Y is now a branch of
| X?
|
| * Does it depend on _how much_ was transferred?
|
| * Does it matter only if the specific sequence was passed
| down? If so, how much mutation is too much mutation?
|
| * What if the same end-result occurred through a retrovirus
| instead of a plasmid. Is the virus an ancestor too?
|
| * What if the swap was simultaneous and bidirectional?
|
| * What about transitive links to organisms W, V, U that did
| the same?
|
| * Are mitochondria "us" yet? If so, are we the ancestors if
| they redevelop enough machinery to "escape"?
|
| etc.
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