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Organism Closest To Original "Tree of Life" Discovered
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have discovered a benign algae eating protozoan in a lake near Oslo, Norway whose gene sequence does not match any known organism living on earth today, and this beasty combines genetic characteristics across plant, animal, and fungal kingdoms. It is believed to be the closest living organism to the original organisms that spawned all animal life on earth."
So what's the /. UID of this thing?
Here's the paper.
And to ruin all of the surprise: it's believed to be about a billion years removed from other known protists. That's about the same age as multicellular life. Archaea are more distant from us than these protists.
This is more baseless conjecture than anything, but its blend of unusual genes most likely suggests that it is the sole (optimized) survivor of a larger ecosystem of similar strains, which may have exchanged DNA through some horizontal gene transfer mechanism in the past. The relatedness to a distant organism in Tibet implies that at least one of these species was once geographically ubiquitous, or spread through some other means, and may have blended into its surroundings there.
The measurement of the organism's "age" is based on the sequence of an extremely conserved gene that codes for a part of a very important cell component, the ribosome. That measurement reflects how many times the sequence has been altered since it last matched a suspected common ancestor with its nearest relatives. The researchers never said that it's been essentially the same organism for a billion years (although it looks that way in the summary and MSNBC article); since they only analysed live samples, not fossilized ones, there's no way of knowing (and I'd be sceptical about any claims that said we could sequence billion-year-old DNA.) At any rate, analytical genomics shows us that for the sequence to stay the same for so long, the environment would have to be completely static and the genes very specifically optimised, which was almost certainly not the case due to historical climate trends. The rate of sequence change is very reliable on a large scale.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Organism Closest To Original "Tree of Life" Discovered
Eating of its fruit doesn't confer immortality per se, but many congenital defects abate, the skin regains elastin and the libido is enhanced significantly.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Nah, we already know what fruit the Tree of Life gave. It's the banana—haven't you seen the totally informative and 100% factual explanation of how perfect it is?
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I eagerly await to see how many moderators and respondents do not realise that this post is sarcastic.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I think from tfs, it is safe to say it is not a new form of life...
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
It doesn't use either. But it has acid for blood, it is very fast and aggressive and requires a host for breeding. Also, its DNA is shaped like a pyramid in a fashion that resembles the pyramids of all known civilizations.
Oh dear.
I'm not sure which was worse: the title, the reasoning, or the fact that I counted the number of single entendres in the low single digits.
Love the way he aims it, phaser-like, at the viewer as he completes his delivery of the opening line.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
It's a eukaryote, which is not at the base of the "tree of life," by a long shot. Neat to have a possible basal eukaryote though.
I can't say I know a great deal about this area but it strikes me that "gene sequence does not match any known organism living on earth today" is not appropriate, seeing as we know so very little about what is crawling around the deepest parts of our oceans. It could well be this Norwegian fellow is quite ordinary.
I never.
It might be a basal eukaryote, but that does not make it basal life, i.e. bacteria and archaea were present on Earth for ~2 billion years before eukaryotes came about..
It's not even a new discovery - it was discovered late 19th century, i.e. more than a century ago. And not in Norway either.
What the Norwegian scientists do is study them closer, using a local lake as a source.
So, another Slashdot summary that's dead wrong. It can't get any worse without a bikini clad lady on page six.
Does this mean we are going to be overun with Pak Protectors.
The research may or may not be ridiculous. The reporting on it is, but that's journalism for you.
Mary?? As in "Virgin Mary?" You had that god all right!
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
They compared its genome with those in hundreds of databases around the world, with little luck. In all that looking they "have only found a partial match with a gene sequence in Tibet.
Is it part of the Rinpoche system? The next Dali Lama perhaps?
Silence is a state of mime.
...and I keep reading it wrong?! Orga*NI*sm damnit... Orga*NI*sm! Read either way there is some truth to the "tree of life" thing but still.
It's not even a new discovery - it was discovered late 19th century, i.e. more than a century ago.
Protozoans were discovered 150 years ago, but they have been hard to investigate. It seems that there may be several different groups that are all classified protozoans, some may be very different from others -- RTFA.
Hail Atlantis! "Way down...below the ocean..."
You are welcome on my lawn.
But what does it taste like?
'Your brain is God.' -- Dr. Timothy Leary
a bikini clad slime mold on page six?
that would be worse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1.Assuming we all evolved from a universal common ancestor we are all equidistant to the original tree of life
2.The organism did not evolve x years ago...it has and will continue to evolve throughout it's existence
It can't get any worse without a bikini clad lady on page six.
Sounds like an April fools prank to play, but for more effect have it be a ./ calendar.
Time to offend someone
From The Herp Derp Summary:
this beasty combines genetic characteristics across plant, animal, and fungal kingdoms
This is never actually mentioned in the article, in fact...
From TFA (emphasis mine):
They found it doesn't genetically fit into any of the previously discovered kingdoms of life. It's an organism with membrane-bound internal structures, called a eukaryote, but genetically it isn't an animal, plant, fungi, algae or protist (the five main groups of eukaryotes).
To me, at least, that doesn't say that it necessarily has characteristics from all of those kingdoms, and certainly doesn't imply that it "combines" them.
Swampthing!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
one of the earliest forms of life requires a host for breeding.
really?
Pop-culture reference. Plus current zeitgeist.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I guess He wasn't so keen on us eating mangoes then. And where did He put the easy-open tab on the cow?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
If this is what all life originated from how did the original organism stay the same over millions of years but at the same time evolve into all living life with no signs at all of anything intermediate?
There was once a family of spearmakers. They were very good at making spears, and people would come from miles around to buy their spears. Because they were so good, the family prospered and multiplied. Then someone invented the sword, and the market for spears dropped, so half the family started making swords. They were very good at making swords, and people would come from miles around to buy their swords. Because they were so good, the family prospered and multiplied. Then someone invented the pistol, and half the family started making pistols. They were very good at making pistols, and people would come from miles around to buy their pistols. Because they were so good, the family prospered and multiplied. This family is now one of the biggest small-arms manufacturers in their country. Somewhere along the line, the branch that continued to produce swords stopped. And yet away in a little mountain village, there's a man descended from the original spear-makers who continues to make traditional spears as ornaments, film props and tourist souvenirs....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
...benign algae eating protozoan...
So was it: ...) ...) ... [newspaper headline style])
1) a protozoan that eats benign algae (a benign-algae-eating protozoan
2) a benign protozoan that eats algae (a benign, algae-eating protozoan
3) a benign algae that was observed eating a protozoan (a benign algae, eating protozoan,
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Someones been reading to man Cussler novels
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
A weapons analogy? C'mon, you're supposed to use cars!
(very good analogy though)
The funny thing is that this literalism is very recent. As per my sig, quoting Tennyson, educated Victorians were already familiar with an enormously expanded timescale and the idea of replacement of species (he was writing in 1844, before Darwin published). And at school we used to sing that Victorian hymn which included the words "A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone" - English protestants had no trouble at all with the idea that the "days" of Genesis were metaphorical
Whether the original writers thought that, of course, is moot. But who did you believe in the early 1800s - a nomadic goat herder or the clever young men at Cambridge who were making such exciting discoveries? And why do apparently educated Americans claim to believe something that was shown to be false over 200 years ago?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Horizontal evolution means some genetic material did not come from your parent(s), but from other organisms during ingestion, symbiosis, sex, infection, etc. Unless their is an institutional mechanism for this like modern sex, successful horizontal transfers probably failed the vast majority of the time. But maybe the one in quadrillion attempt succeeded and conferred a retained advantage.
Is that you?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Evolution is not directional, that is aiming toward a particular goal, say humans. It goes in both directions, both complexifying and simplifying in order to occupy all the ecological niches it can. Parasites and viruses may be examples of simplification of more complete organisms at one time. The organism in this article may be a simplification of a eukaryote too. Then maybe not.
I, for one, welcome our old protozoan overlords.
is that they're the cast of Jersey Shore.
And rotates on its axis once a day? That's what "literal days as experienced by the universe" would mean. That's even sillier than Young Earth Creationism, which is even sillier than ... something very silly indeed.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Protozoans were discovered 150 years ago, but they have been hard to investigate. It seems that there may be several different groups that are all classified protozoans, some may be very different from others -- RTFA.
RTFA yourself. This is a collodictyon, which were first described by H. J. Carter in 1865:
Collodictyon, nov. gen. C. triciliatum, nov. sp.
Pyriform, straight, or slightly bent upon itself, bifid at the small extremity, presenting at the larger one an indentation, from which spring three cilia. Structure transparent, cancellated, composed of globular cells, whith a strongly marked, grenish granule here and there in the triangular spaces between them. Locomotive, swimming by means of the cilia; subpolymorphic, flexible, yielding, capable of assuming a globular form . . . or one more or less modified by the body it may incept . . . ; enclosing crude material for noourishment in stomachal spaces, and ejecting the refuse, like Amoeba. Provided with a nucleus and contracting vesicles.
Previous findings include Bombay and Central Europe, and what was found in Norway some 20 years ago is just another variety of Collodictyons. What's new is the study of them enabled by a local source, and potential classification as the most remote type of eukaryotes.
You got it all wrong. It's Norwegian. This thing is obviously Yggdrasil ..but who'd a thunk it'd be so small?
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The whole taking the six days literally thing is a Protestant error.
Especially when you consider that there was no "evening and morning" for the seventh day. This adds more support to the day-age interpretation of Genesis 1. God has rested; have you joined him in his rest?
As we analyze more genomes, I wonder how much more our currently accepted taxonomy of organisms will change?
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Honestly, when I read it, my first thought was "Ah, this is a creationist trying to be clever."
My God isn't a murderous psychopath instituting insane and arbitrary laws and demanding adoration under threat of violence.
Happy now?
(And yes, there does seem to be a bizarre radical flavor of Christianity forming in the Republican party like a cancer in response to certain liberal atheist agendas. This isn't to say that Christians nor republicans nor most liberals are evil.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
will finally get some respect!
To compound this, there were no "sons of Adam" to act as witnesses to the creation. Where did that knowledge come from?
If you believe tradition, the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses... But he didn't live through Genesis. How did he come to all that knowledge? He could have abridged other writings, but that still doesn't explain the account of the creation. The explanation that makes the most sense? He (or someone else) was told by God or by an angelic messenger. Therein lies the rub.
God has a habit of being intentionally obtuse at times. Every time someone receives a vision in their dreams, and every time a parable is told, there is someone present who will understand the symbolism. Yet most of the time, the message will go right over everyone else's head. One of the great problems with interpreting the Bible has to do with which passages are meant literally, and which are figurative. Most of the time, it's rather obvious, but there's always someone who will get it wrong. With Genesis, it's actually quite hard.
The question isn't: is the creation account symbolic? The question is: How much of the creation account is symbolic, and of what?
(Those who believe every word of the Bible is literal, really should reread the parables of Christ and the dreams interpreted by Daniel. Then they can try to explain why 100% of the other dreams and sayings recorded are all literal.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
"Is this Heaven?......." "No, its Oslo......" "....oh.......Oslo....God was in Iowa for a while....."
My guess is that it is more likely the result of a series of genetic mergers over time than something that evolved over a billion years ago and then spawned the other trees which in turn lost information. That would make it more complex than many of its decendents and this sort of complexity usually moves in the other direction in evolution. We know blue-green algae exchange DNA with each other. A similar set of processes much later in time could have resulted in this species which managed collect DNA from a set of primitive peers that as a collection gave a significant evolutionary advantage.
How many Lojbanists does it take to change a broken light bulb?
Two: one to decide what to change it into, and one to ponder what kind of bulb emits broken light.
$ echo "ceci n'est pas une pipe" | sed -Ee 's/(eci n|pas )//g'