Nanobacteria Discovered?

Great. juuuust great. by Machine9 · 2004-05-20 01:17 · Score: 5, Funny

Great. more reasons never to leave my desk. so many nasty little bugs out there ;)

--

Re:Great. juuuust great. by Alien54 · 2004-05-20 01:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

1999 BBC report: Do nanobacteria rule Earth and Mars?
Nanobacteria - Is Cardiovascular Disease an Infection??
1998 Nanobacteria paper for biology geeks and Doctors
bottom line, this stuff has been debated since 1985. Now someone claims to discover a new form of life? That's like not naming the new world Columbus discovered Columbia (with apologies to the American Indians, who were there all along) Plenty of prior art.
Note also the results from the usual Google Search on NanoBacteria

--
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"

More Info on Kajander's Site by bcolflesh · 2004-05-20 01:18 · Score: 5, Informative

http://www.uku.fi/~kajander/

bioweapons? by vijayiyer · 2004-05-20 01:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

Sounds like a new generation of biological weapons are waiting to be developed which would be far more difficult to detect...

Re:bioweapons? by analog_line · 2004-05-20 02:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well, the first thing is that not everyone actually agrees that these things are alive. They haven't been able to extract nucleic acids from the structures. So either we need better tools to extract them, or these nanobacteria function in an completely and utterly different way than the rest of life as we know it. Forget anabolic respiration and whatnot. There's obviously SOMETHING happening, however, as they're able to get this stuff to reproduce in culture.

Once we've figured out what it actually is, then we can figure out how it's put together, then we can start tinkering with it, but my guess is that's going to be quite a ways off.

So... by Roman+Levin · 2004-05-20 01:19 · Score: 5, Funny

Do 10^9 nanobacteria make up a regular one?

Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by alanw · 2004-05-20 01:20 · Score: 5, Informative

New Scientist has a longer article, which goes into more details of the politics between rival teams of scientists.

See also the article by John Cisar (a sceptic) An alternative interpretation of nanobacteria-induced biomineralization

Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by InternationalCow · 2004-05-20 01:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

Scepticism indeed seems warranted here. For one, it is telling that this "breakthrough" has appeared in a low-impact journal. What's even more important is that behaviour as shown by the "nanobacteria" can also be interpreted as being the consequence of conformational changes of proteins in solution induced by the particles. Mutated prions are also capable of doing so (they change the prion normal structure into a beta-sheet), thereby causing disease. Self-assembly of macromolecules also comes to mind as a potential explanation. It is therefore way too early to describe the structures found as "living". Do viruses live? Do prions "live"? They do not, but bacteria certainly do. Craig Venter has rather convincingly shown that most currently known living organisms require a minimum set of genes for metabolism and so on, ie a minimum amount of DNA, organelles, proteins and so on. If the nanobacteria are too small to contain all of that, which they do, I very much doubt they deserve the name bacterium. Their disease-causing potential is a different matter altogether, see the prion diseases. If these structures can accelerate atherosclerosis in model animals I would certainly be intrigued to say the very least.

--
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by cluckshot · 2004-05-20 01:41 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually the problem with publishing certain medical discoveries in the "Standard Outlets" is that they are "Standard Outlets." The discovery that stomach ulcers were bacteria caused was so contraversial that the MD who discovered it was nearly cashiered out of the profession. The fact of his ability to treat them effectively had no account. The fact that he had cultured H-Pilori had no account and got him no standing in the standard outlet journals for medicine.

I have worked Heart Transplant Unit as RN. We knew early as 1992 that the causes of heart disease were Viral and Bacterial (Several causes). We also knew that Cholesterol had nothing to do with the problem.

The presence of Homcystine an indicator of cellular destruction was a key indicator but not diagnostic because of other sources of destroyed cells.

The arterial plaquing associated with heart disease is bacterial plaquing similar to that of tooth plaques caused by various bacteria most prominant of which is Hemolytic Strep A. What happens is during your life, you get an infection somewhere. Most likely it is in your gums. This infection seeds germs into the blood which find cavitation points in the body to hide out where the normal immune factors of the blood have a hard time getting to them. There they set up plaques to hold on and to defend themselves from the body. They grow essentially in stasis (very slowly) blooming out when the body defenses are weakened or the body oxygen level drops or the blood sugar level gets too high. These blooms are frequently the events people know as heart attack and stroke.

It would be no surprise that some other agents such as a "Nano-Bacteria" were at the root of this stuff. I would suspect though that these are actually agents of control that are seeded out of the larger bacteria to control the host. Bacteria do this sort of thing a lot.

--
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by InternationalCow · 2004-05-20 01:47 · Score: 4, Informative

Well, occasionally the standard outlets do have it wrong. Most of the times they just adhere to stringent standards of scientific correctness. Sometimes that is a disadvantage but it spares us from having to suffer through junk science most of the time. I would also like to politely disagree with you on the central role that bacteria play in atherosclerosis. Cholesterol has a lot to do with it, if you look at what happens to people suffering from congenital hypercholesterolemia. They die from atherosclerosis. Homocysteine is not there as a consequence of bacterial infestation but because of hyperhomocysteinemia, a rather common metabolic defect. There is currently no proof for a central role of bacterial/viral infection in atherosclerosis. There is also no proof to the contrary, but if you read your science philosophy you will realize that does not mean that your hypothesis is correct.

--
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by greenhide · 2004-05-20 01:49 · Score: 3, Funny

What happens is during your life, you get an infection somewhere. Most likely it is in your gums.

Dentists were overjoyed when they learned about this, by the way.

Finally, a way to get people to floss:

Floss, or you die.

--
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by TykeClone · 2004-05-20 02:08 · Score: 3, Informative

Floss, release those germs into your bloodstream, then die.
Seriously though, I have a heart murmur and am required to take a good shot of penicillin before visiting the dentist for that very concern.

--
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by Sgt+York · 2004-05-20 02:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Although the mechanisms you describe are possibly valid mechanisms of CVD, they are by no means the only mechanisms. Some CVD may have nothing to do with cholesterol levels, etc. but certainly not all of them
If CVD were caused solely by infection, then there would be no correlation to diet, provided immune function is accounted for (which is the case in most studies). Furthermore, if infection were the primary in CV events like stroke & heart attack, any person with cardiovascular disease that became immunosuppressed would have an immediate vascular event of some kind. Not all heart transplant patients have a stroke as soon as they are started on immunosuppressive drugs. In fact, most don't.
I'm not saying that it's not possible that infection causes CVD, I think it probably does. I am saying, however, that it is not the only mechanism. Just like H./C. pylori infection is not the only cause of stomach ulcers. This is why a lot of "on the edge" theories don't get into 1st tier journals; they speak in absolutes. Scientists don't like it when the first paper on a subject comes right out and says "This IS the way it is, because of such and such". First papers on a subject are always considered preliminary, and should be worded as such. We have enough trouble with the media touting things as absolutes without our own ranks encouraging or feeding the behavior.
By the way, Warren & Marshall's paper describing the effect of C. pyloriwas published in Lancet. Subsequent papers were in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, and Journal of Clinical Pathology. Hardly obscure journals. Techniques for screening people for the bacterium were developewd within four years of the first paper on the subject. Three years after the first paper attempting to fulfill Koch's postulates. Doesn't sound like he was kicked out of the field. A quick Pubmed search shows that they kept up a steady stream of journal articles, even to today.

--

There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by RicoX9 · 2004-05-20 02:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

IANIITMP (I Am Not Involved In The Medical Profession)
</DISCLAIMER>

Both of your comments make a lot of sense. It seems to me that it could very well be that high cholesterol provides an enviornment friendly to something like nano-bacteria (or whatever). Or that there is some other factor (such as an immune system vulnerability) that manifests as high cholesterol in people with a susceptibility to heart disease.

What I'm trying to say is that one does not necessarily exclude the other. Both could be related. Maybe I'm not expressing this correctly, but then again, I'm in the profession of moving IP packets, not blood cells.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by benzapp · 2004-05-20 03:18 · Score: 4, Informative

Cholesterol has a lot to do with it, if you look at what happens to people suffering from congenital hypercholesterolemia.

I think you should preface that with lipoproteins that are low density, due to the cholesterol being oxidized by heat.

Cholesterol is one of the most necessary substances in your body, particularly the brain where lipoproteins are the largest component after water.

Lets not forget there is 10 times as much cholesterol in human breast milk than protein, and that low blood levels of cholesterol is one of the few (and possibily the only) predictor of suicidal depression.

This is actually a critical flaw in the modern medical establishment, particular in regards to cholesterol being given to infants. Not a single infant formula contains cholesterol, despite the copious amounts of the stuff in human milk. It is no wonder formula fed infants are dumber than average, the growth of their brain is severely restricted due to serious dietary deficiencies.

Cholesterol that is undamaged by heat or any other energy source is necessary for human survival, and is not at all dangerous.

--
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by lukesl · 2004-05-20 03:31 · Score: 4, Informative

Actually the problem with publishing certain medical discoveries in the "Standard Outlets" is that they are "Standard Outlets." The discovery that stomach ulcers were bacteria caused was so contraversial that the MD who discovered it was nearly cashiered out of the profession. The fact of his ability to treat them effectively had no account. The fact that he had cultured H-Pilori had no account and got him no standing in the standard outlet journals for medicine.

The flaw in your reasoning is the idea that the viability of nanobacteria is as easy to prove/falsify as the assertion that bacterium X causes disease Y. Medical science is driven by dogma, politics, etc. much more than basic science, as medical scientists have to deal with things that are harder to prove. The guy who figured out that H. pylori causes ulcers couldn't get anyone to listen because he couldn't perform the simple study to prove it, namely putting a bunch of people in cages and infecting them (or giving placebo), then waiting to see if they got ulcers. It wasn't until he drank a culture of the bugs himself and got an ulcer that anyone listened.

On the other hand, if someone is making an extremely simple claim, like "these things in this tube are alive," there are extremely simple ways to test that. The fact that something "replicates" is certainly not convincing evidence for life, only for some sort of chemical reaction. It might be a really really interesting chemical reaction, but if someone "grows" a bunch of these nanobugs, but then can't isolate DNA from them, you have to be really suspicious, because isolating DNA from anything is a trivial procedure.

Oh, BTW, what you're saying about heart disease is BS. You're confusing endocarditis with atherosclerosis, and in neither case are arterial plaques in any similar to dental plaque. IAAMDPHD.
Re:Sceptical articles on nanobacteria by benzapp · 2004-05-20 06:06 · Score: 3, Informative

No, people do not need to consume cholesterol. Your body makes all the cholesterol it can ever use.

Provide your source. your body also makes Vitamins B1, B3, and B6 but you will be deficient if you do not eat enough of it. Further, that ability exists in infants from the moment they are born. Why would the need to consume cholesterol only apply to infants, in stark contradiction to many other vitamins and hormones including those I just mentioned? Or do you think cholesterol is in mother's milk out of some freak coincidence?

Cholesterol is only available from animal sources. If humans needed cholesterol to survive, strict vegetarians (vegans) would be dropping dead left and right.

The vast majority of vegans do not remain that way for extended periods of time. Further, when they do binge it is often on dairy products that contain substantial amounts of cholesterol. Cholesterol is used by your body to produce lipoproteins which comprise cell membranes. All cellular growth thus requires cholesterol. Where do vegans have major problems? Reproduction and muscle growth. The number of cases of low birth weight and spontaneous abortion are quite high amongst vegans. All the medical evidence clearly indicates veganism is dangerous.

Correlation is one thing. Causation is another.

Well, you must have a PhD in statistics! Thank you so much for that enlightening knowledge. Perhaps you are unaware, but the whole of medical knowledge is based on theories and the use of statistics to support them. causation, on the micro level, is almost impossible to prove. Science today is entirely based on probability.

Its good that you are taking an interest in your health and your diet. But learn nutrition from books and journals -- not from magazines, newspapers, and TV.

Ahh yes, can you name one newspaper article or television show that discusses anything I just mentioned, specially the points you selectively challenged and that I will shortly dismiss with numerous references to journals? No, I didn't think so. Fortunately for you, I actual DO read medical journals, and not just bullshit on slashdot. Have fun reading, of course you won't however... as this completely conflicts with your preconceived notions of proper diet (no serious student of medicine would give any credit to veganism)

The following citations can be found on the National Library of Medicine

low blood levels of cholesterol are linked with decreased immunity
(1)Weverling-Rijnsburger, A.W. et al, Total cholesterol and risk of mortality in the oldest old. Lancet 1997 / 350 (9085) / 1119-1123. ,

(2)Forette ,B. et al, Cholesterol as risk factor for mortality in elderly women. Lancet 1989 / 1 (8643) / 868-870.

(3)Isles, C.G. et al, Plasma cholesterol, coronary heart disease, and cancer in the Renfrew and Paisley survey. Brit. Med. J. 1989 / 298 (6678) / 920-924.

(4)Rose, G. & M.J. Shipley, Plasma lipids and mortality : a source of error. Lancet 1980 / 1 (8167) / 523-526.

Low blood levels of cholesterol impair brain and liver function

(1)Xu, G. et al, Relationship between abnormal cholesterol synthesis and retarded learning in rats. Metabolism 1998 / 47 (7) / 878-882.

(2)Schoknecht, P.A. et al, Dietary cholesterol supplementation improves growth and behavioural response of pigs selected for genetically high and low serum cholesterol. Nutr.1994 / 124 (2) / pag.305-314.

(3)Hague, Z.U. et al, Importance of dietary cholesterol for the maturation of mouse brain myelin. Biosc. Biotech. Biochem. 1992 / 56 (8) / 1351-1354.

low cholesterol is associated with severe pathological behavior

(1)Golomb BA, et al, Low cholesterol and violent crime. J Psychiatr Res 2000 Jul-Oct;34(4-5):301-9.

(2)Hillbrand M, et al, Serum cholesterol concentrations and mood states in violent psychiat

--
I don't read or respond to AC posts

Not everyone agrees by not_a_product_id · 2004-05-20 01:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't think this is proven yet. Some comments from other scientist in the BBC piece suggest that the methods they used can be prone to false positives. This is probably a good one to RTFM!

--

---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience

Re:Not everyone agrees by belmolis · 2004-05-20 01:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

Granting that the answer isn't in, it seems to me that the false positives issue only concerns whether the particles contain DNA, which isn't the critical issue. If they are multiplying in culture, that means they're alive, at least as life has been defined until now. Of course there might be some other explanation for the change in optical density of the fluid. The articles don't seem to say why they can't do a more direct count of the particles.

I have to admit, my first reaction to the headline was that it was about SCO.
Re:Not everyone agrees by krmt · 2004-05-20 02:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

I read the PNAS article that was written by one of the critics. His claims that it's due to the aggregation of some other mineral particle, such as apatite, and has evidence to suggest that this is possible. He also does DNA sequence comparisons to demonstrate that there is a very strong similarity between the putative nanobacterial sequence and a common bacterial sequence for a certain very old (and therefore very well conserved over time) gene, indicating that it may be due to contamination.

While this evidence isn't very compelling in itself, it does cast a lot of doubt in my mind on how these nanobacteria could work. The DNA staining is very inconclusive (no distinct chromosomes), and even the culture conditions for the nanobacteria (including an experiment where they further dilute the nanobacteria culture and get no growth at all) make things very tenuous.

I'd personally like to see a genetic sequence for these things. I'd also love to hear an answer as to how they can replicate with such a small amount of DNA. I certaintly don't want to say that it's impossible for these things to exist, but the data so far is definitely inconclusive. Multiplication in serum does not equal life.

--

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

masks? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-20 01:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

What size particules can standard biofilter masks remove? The kind that the military use? Medical?

Re:masks? by jeff4747 · 2004-05-20 02:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

Uusually they will say somewhere on the package.

The gist is that the ones designed to block bio-warfare agents block out viruses, which are still smaller than nanobacteria.

More commonly available masks, such as surgical masks, aren't designed to block as much, so nanobacteria may be able to get through them.

Photo Album by $exyNerdie · 2004-05-20 01:23 · Score: 4, Informative

Nanobacteria Photo Gallery

Lucas has the TradeMark by The+Jon · 2004-05-20 01:27 · Score: 5, Funny

one word: medichlorians.

--
umop apisdn aw pow f,uop aseald :umop aw pow 'dn aw pow

Re:Mayo clinic by grub · 2004-05-20 01:31 · Score: 5, Funny

The Mayo Clinic is named after the famed 19th century doctor Charles Mayonowski. His family moved to the US from Poland in 1857 where they changed their name to remove the ethnicity of it (this was the mid 1800s, remember)

Charles was born in January 1850 but the exact date isn't known. He was an average student in early school but showed a strong interest in biology. His father would often find him in the barn late at night dissecting newborn piglets.

In 1869, Charles went to England to attend school at Oxford. He later received his medical degree but had to come back to America after suspicion was cast on him when several dozen fresh graves were robbed of their corpses and were later found wrapped in burlap in the university incinerators. (the bodies showed signs of expert dissection).

Moving to Minnesota, he founded a small clinic for the poor. Many of the patients disappeared but Mayo was found to be an excellent practitioner all around. When he died the funeral was attended by over 20,000 people. Many of them relatives of the poor who disappeared (and were presumed dissected) but knew of the importance of the knowledge he gleaned from his bloody experiments.

Actually... that's all bullshit. Sorry.

--
Trolling is a art,

RTFA by Alomex · 2004-05-20 01:32 · Score: 4, Informative

r John Lieske of the Mayo Clinic claims they have found irrefutable evidence of the existence of nanobacteria.

They do not claim such a thing. They claim to have found potential evidence of the existence of nanobacteria. Alternate explanations of the evidence have already been given (false positive DNA test, for one).

potential != irrefutable

Well, at least that explains by unassimilatible · 2004-05-20 01:35 · Score: 4, Funny

All my nanorashes and nanoitching and nanoburning.

--
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you

Ciftcioglu eh?? by CajunArson · 2004-05-20 01:37 · Score: 4, Funny

Look's like Cthulu's cousin is getting busy!

--
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.

Optical density? by mikeophile · 2004-05-20 01:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

When the tissue was broken up, filtered to remove anything more than 200nm and the filtrate added to a sterile medium, the optical density - or cloudiness - of the medium increased.

This, the researchers argue, means the nanoparticles were multiplying of their own accord.

Wouldn't this also occur if the sub-200nm chunks broke up further after filtration?

The Mars Meteorite by mrmargolis · 2004-05-20 01:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

One of the major arguments against the life harboring theory for the meteorite found in Antarctica in 1984 by Roberta Score was that the signs of life it contained were an order of magnatude smaller than anything known to man. Perhaps these signs of nanobacteria merit reopening the mars rock investigation?

Re:Not everything that reproduces is alive by cpghost · 2004-05-20 01:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

A lot of protein-like structures reproduce, but aren't considered to be alive

Computer virii reproduce too, but aren't considered alive either...

--
cpghost at Cordula's Web.

Journal Impact Factors by nucal · 2004-05-20 02:01 · Score: 4, Informative

For one, it is telling that this "breakthrough" has appeared in a low-impact journal.

You really pressed one of my buttons here. Did you actually read the article and judge for youself or did you just assume that it was lousy based on the ISI impact factor? By the way the impact factor for the the journal in question, American Journal of Physiology, is in the "mid-range" (~3-4), but not horrible (there are journals with impact factors less than 1). In fact, the whole idea of impact factors is pretty controversial and has been abused as a criterion for promotions, grant awards, etc.

There's plenty of bullshit published in the "so-called" top tier journals (Science, Nature, Cell, etc.) and plenty of excellent science published in what you are calling a low-impact journal.

Also, the group working on nanobacteria had to revise their work seven times - this is an unheard of level of skepticism and suggests that there is an unusual level of politics going on here.

Re:Journal Impact Factors by krmt · 2004-05-20 02:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Agreed on all counts. The New Scientist article that someone else linked goes in to the politics a bit, and is a good read. Interestingly, the major article by a sceptic was submitted to PNAS, track II (for those who don't know, track II means it gets published without review, since PNAS is a bit of an "old boys club") so it should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, the science in that paper looks decent to me on the whole, at least in terms of raising questions that still need to be answered, most notably about the genetic material of these things.

There's also an article by the original group claiming that the nanobacteria induce apoptosis in a variety of cells, including fibroblasts in cell culture. This doesn't make any sense to me, evolutionarily, pathogenically, or physiologically. I haven't read that paper yet, only the abstract, but I still feel like I need to see a whole lot more good data on these things before I'll be convinced.

--

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Re:Journal Impact Factors by InternationalCow · 2004-05-20 02:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's obvious that this is one of your buttons. I am not that fond of the impact factor system. On the contrary. However, at this point in time it is one of the few more or less reliable ways of judging the importance (in terms of readership etc) of a particular publication. And while bullshit has OCCASIONALLY appeared in Science, Cell or Nature, "plenty" is not the word I would use. Generally, standards are high. And if a mid-range journal asks for seven revisions that tells me too that there is politics going on. That is, some editor really wanted it published while others did not like it at all. If a paper is rejected by reviewers twice in a row that is usually grounds for definitive rejection. And to get back to the original point - this still doesn't mean that the existence of nanobacteria has been proved or that the methods used for the proof were adequate.

--
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.

Re:BBC Can't spell by nebaz · 2004-05-20 02:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

Well, pass me some crow. After checking some of the replies, an anonymous coward wrote

I think you will find that the BBC got the spelling from mississippi state univeristy.

Wondering where he found that information, I clicked on the "Related Links" link from the BBC article, did a little more clicking, and found the following excepts from this article

After many puzzling months, RLF finally went to the Biology library and found that, yes, dwarfed bacterial cells were known, variously called spores, resting stages, or ultramicrobacteria. Along the way, a friend stopped by to examine the photos and said that these looked like what had been called "nannobacteria" (term coined by R. Y. Morita in 1988).. So Folk adopted that term, analogous to "nannoplankton" or "nannofossils" common terms in geology dating back to the 1800's.

Guess it's not the BBC's fault after all, though I still prefer "nanobacteria".

--
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story

ogden nash's prescience on this matter.... by margulies · 2004-05-20 03:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

Bigger fleas have smaller fleas
Upon their backs to bite'em
And smaller fleas have lesser fleas
And so ad infinitem.

And the bigger fleas, in turn
Have greater fleas to go on
And these in turn have greater still
And greater still, and so on.

Re:Difference Between Nanobacteria and Prions? by J'raxis · 2004-05-20 05:39 · Score: 3, Informative

I think these nanobacteria are just smaller than bacteria (and larger than viruses), not actually smaller than prions, which still hold the title as the smallest.

Bacteria - full-size living organisms with DNA and organelles and everything.
Nanobacteria - really tiny versions of the above.
Viruses - strands of protein and RNA.
Prions - individual protein molecules.

--
Liberty in your lifetime

Re:Difference Between Nanobacteria and Prions? by the+gnat · 2004-05-20 06:49 · Score: 3, Informative

I think these nanobacteria are just smaller than bacteria (and larger than viruses), not actually smaller than prions, which still hold the title as the smallest.

Prions are organic infectious agents, but they're not "life" under any standard, and they're also nothing more than corrupted versions of proteins already in the cell. Their replication is a trick of physical chemistry, not a true reproductive process, not even comparable to a virus's hijacking of the cell's machinery. Prions are really more like oncogenic proteins, except with transmissibility.

Viruses are actually more complicated that "strands of protein and RNA"; some have relatively large genomes (~40 proteins) and a fairly intricate structure. Bacteriophages in particular have a wicked-looking protein casing. They're still not life, though, as they don't reproduce on their own and don't metabolize energy. (I think they're also one of the great mysteries of evolution, as well.)

38 of 267 comments (clear)