Why Scientists Think Completely Unclassifiable and Undiscovered Life Forms Exist

An anonymous reader writes: In a new paper published in Science, researchers at the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute note that "there are reasons to believe that current approaches [to discovering life] may indeed miss taxa, particularly if they are very different from those that have so far been characterized." They believe life forms exist that don't fall into the established eukaryota, archaea, or bacteria kingdoms. They argue that there may be life out there that doesn't use the four DNA and RNA bases that we're used to; there may be life out there that has evolved completely separately from everything that we have ever known to exist; there may be life that lives in places we haven't even looked.

Comments

Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[QuietLagoon]

Of course not.

.
To think that we have discovered all there is to know regarding life forms would mean that we already know all there is to know in this field.

So maybe we need to use different methods than the ones we have been using. Makes sense to me.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[penguinoid]

Indeed. We have enough trouble finding certain DNA-based life forms. Plenty of life forms we only know about because we leaned how to copy DNA, and started grinding up samples and amplifying the DNA. Many of those refuse to grow in petri dishes and don't cause diseases, and would no doubt be unknown to this day if they didn't contain DNA.

I think there's a fairly low chance that Earth has life that doesn't use DNA/RNA but if there is and it minds its own business, it could be decades or more before we discover them.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

And just to pick a nit a bit:
"Unclassifiable" is pure nonsense. Unfamiliar, sure. Foundationally different than all terran life, sure. Unclassifiable, no. Even if it just starts a conversation that leads to a decision to add a larger category than 'kingdom,' once recognized, it can be classified.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is what happens when people start to hypnotize themselves with their classification system into thinking it is "how reality really is".

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Applehu Akbar]

What they mean by the term is "not fitting existing classifications" of course.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[slimshady76]

Whoever tries to hammer reality to make it fit into that tiny box called "model" shows himself as a rather dumb person.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[o_ferguson]

Yeah. Basically Gödel 101.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[smellsofbikes]

Indeed. We have enough trouble finding certain DNA-based life forms. Plenty of life forms we only know about because we leaned how to copy DNA, and started grinding up samples and amplifying the DNA. Many of those refuse to grow in petri dishes and don't cause diseases, and would no doubt be unknown to this day if they didn't contain DNA.

I think there's a fairly low chance that Earth has life that doesn't use DNA/RNA but if there is and it minds its own business, it could be decades or more before we discover them.

Consider things that grow much, much more slowly. They're already finding chemolithoautotrophs living in rock 4 km beneath the surface of the earth, that reproduce over the course of years, rather than in twenty minutes like the bacteria we're used to working with. If there were organisms that didn't have DNA, but did have some sort of body that could maintain chemical gradients, allowing it some sort of metabolism, and reproduced on the scale of centuries, we'd have trouble ever noticing it was there because we haven't made the tools to find it, for lack of knowing what we're looking for.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[HiThere]

Are Prions a form of life? If not, why not?

They don't use DNA, they use proteins.

OTOH all known Prions are either symbiotes or parasites.

Whether we recognize any particular non-DNA using entity as a form of life is going to depend strongly on what definition we use for life.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[lgw]

The best phrase I've heard for this is "don't eat the menu". Indeed.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Chalnoth]

Not quite. They're suggesting that there's a good chance that there's an entirely different domain (or more) of life other than eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea. That's a pretty radical proposition, but not entirely out of bounds, because many of our more modern techniques for detecting life forms check for molecules that may not exist in a fourth (or fifth or sixth) domain of life.

If it turns out to be the case that there are only three domains of cellular life (leaving viruses out of the discussion for now), that doesn't indicate that we know all there is to know. It just means that cellular life can be categorized into three groups. These researchers could be entirely incorrect in their assumptions. For example, the genes they mention could have evolved within the viruses themselves, or could be remnants of a now-extinct branch of eukaryotes.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[shaitand]

Someone else mentioned timescales. It seems to me that it depends on how we define "life." Would you consider self-awareness to be life?

Self awareness basically emerges from any self scoring logical multi-dimensional memory system that can emerge patterns. Our brains use neural nets for this but the basic concept behind a neural net is so simple it could exist in logical patterns in ocean currents, rock formations, and or weather patterns on timescales of picoseconds or millions of years.

And then there is scoring, we control this with artificial neural nets because we want them to exhibit a behavior WE are defining and measuring. If you let go of that and just simplify it to a system that tries to assess what exists or doesn't exist with pre-defining what is "correct" for it. You just tie that neural net to a scoring system constantly going through a cycle of 1 (positive score, remember those connections), (neutral score, no change), 0 (negative score). At a glance this seems to have the result of canceling everything out, but that isn't true connections used during both of the first two cycles leave an imprint that will slowly fade unless repeated, higher order patterns will emerge with patterns of complexity limited only by the multi-dimensional memory system.

Are the patterns real or imaginary? They are reflections of what the system has actually been able to observe, measure, or experience which is all we ourselves can say about our thoughts and even our own existence. A system like this views new things through the lens of previous impressions and experiences. It learns. It can identify any pattern it can sense. Science says everything real has a pattern of observable behavior and properties. What about feelings? Feelings are probably a mix of biochemical reactions and perceptions. The result of an intelligence like us but without the biochemical reactions is probably closer to a sociopath, able to perceive, understand and even relate to the negative patterns that trigger the biochemical reactions but not actually having the emotional wash. Unlike a sociopath it wouldn't be human, so it might not relate very at all. One very cool automatic property of a system like this? That scoring loop means it spends 1/3 of it's existence doing what could be argued is the logical equivalent of sleeping.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Livius]

It should have been phrased better, but I think they mean something not fitting into current classification systems. The response to which will be to improve the classification.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think about it. Unclassifiable is a classification, so there!

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Indeed. We have enough trouble finding certain DNA-based life forms."

Even after years and years of research, scientists weren't able to find intelligent life in Congress.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Pino Grigio]

This is an excellent point. Of course replicators existed on Earth before cells had DNA. According to Nick Lane DNA would have been rather late to the party and is more a useful technological advance that gives cells a more independent existence than they would otherwise have.

Re: Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[loftarasa]

inb4 Avatar

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Pino Grigio]

I would define life as a "unit of selection". But that would imply certain minerals are also units of selection. I mean minerals evolve don't they, from basic refractories (about 60 varieties) that appear when stars explode to the more complex varieties that evolve through geological processes on planets like ours. I suppose in a way this is an example of the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind"; where for convenience and because our brains are effectively machines for classifying things, we see joins where there really aren't any.

Re: Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not radical at all, it's obvious. To think that the familiar DNA lifeforms on our planet are the only self-reproducing chemical reactions in the universe is the height of arrogance. But what else would you expect from a bunch of glorified apes?

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[khchung]

And just to pick a nit a bit:
"Unclassifiable" is pure nonsense.

This was written by a journalist. What could you expect?

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[__aanbvm4272]

" it could exist in logical patterns in ocean currents, rock formations, and or weather patterns on timescales of picoseconds or millions of years." The weather is indeed capable of enough life to pass for a congressman, just kidding. Really I get a sense of 'a sort of living thing' watching the physics involved with storm cells & hurricanes etc. It's like a refrigeration system drivin' by the Sun. another life force, Remember; Don't piss off mother nature, son!

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[jc42]

Not quite. They're suggesting that there's a good chance that there's an entirely different domain (or more) of life other than eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea. That's a pretty radical proposition, ...

Um, not really. A bit of quick googling verified within a minute my memory that the "discovery" of the archaea only dates back to the 1970s. Before that, the few that were known were (mis)classified as bacteria. Then a few researchers looked into their details, and showed that they weren't bacteria at all. Biologists basically watched the discussions, and eventually recognized that those researchers were right, and since then we've had 3 "kingdoms" of Earthly life forms.

It's the idea that those 3 root classifications are all there is that's really radical. The default conjecture should really be that, if we discovered such a major root clade so recently, there are probably more waiting to be discovered. Assuming otherwise mostly just shows a lack of knowledge of the recent history of biological discovery.

In particular, someone else has already mentioned the fact that the various deep-drilling projects have found living things kilometers deep in the rocks, no matter where they've drilled. The folks working with this data have estimated that there's more biomass below the surface water+soil layer than there is above it. It's likely that the critters living their slow, warm lives down there are radically different from anything up here on the planet's thin skin. Learning about them is going to take time. (And we can hope that the rapid expansion of "fracking" won't cause a mass extinction due to the massive habitat destruction down there before we have a chance to study them. ;-)

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Chalnoth]

A couple of points here.

First, we've now sequenced the DNA of so many microorganisms that it would be very, very hard for a new domain of life that uses the same sort of DNA structures to exist. The only likely way for a new form of life to exist is for it to be of a kind that isn't picked up in our DNA tests. That's what is proposed in this article.

Given that, and given that all life (and viruses) found so far speak the same basic DNA language, it's really not unreasonable at all that the domains we've already discovered are the only ones.

There's an outside possibility of new discoveries shaking up the current tree of life, splitting one of our domains in two (as happened with bacteria/archaea). But that's not what is being discussed in this article.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

lol, just by them saying it's "unclassifiable" they HAVE classified it, just under "we don't know".

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[serviscope_minor]

Even if it just starts a conversation that leads to a decision to add a larger category than 'kingdom,'

We already have that. The current popular top level is the domain, with the domains being bacteria, archaea and eukariotes.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[umafuckit]

I think we've reached the stage some time ago where the term "life" has outlived its usefulness. It seems it's no longer helpful to attempt to classify stuff as alive or not alive. We know what viruses and prions are and how they operate. So we know what's important. Deciding whether or not they're alive is just semantics and you can tie yourself in knots that way pretty quickly. You ask if a prion is form of life, for instance. Well, it's just protein so insulin also to be considered a form of life? Prions just form aggregates--they self-assemble. So can we consider anything that does that alive? Salt crystals? What about saying that stuff that maintains its environment is a alive? So is a buffer solution alive?

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So it's, after a fashion, the biological equivalent of "we've found elements that aren't in the periodic table in that ancient artifact!" from lousy sci-fi movies? ;-)

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an appropriate nit to pick. I hope the kids doing Big-Data have this straight - - - - We find millions of bottles on the sea floor with rounded bottoms. Subsequently we find a clay container with a square bottom and become very confused! It can't be a bottle. All bottles have rounded bottoms.

Re: Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your pretention/content ratio is the height of fuck you.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[RockDoctor]

I haven't heard of any scientist dumb enough to waste their time on such a search. And I rather doubt that they'd get funding for such a forlorn task.

Perhaps they may wish to apply to the Disco.Ins.tit who are a bunch of Creationists. They like throwing money at worthless projects.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[Xest]

Yes and this is largely because taxonomy is a mostly broken pseudo-science.

To this day most taxonomic classification is done based on "what it looks like" and whilst DNA classification is growing it's still not done well.

For example, if plant A looks like plant B and shares many similar traits it will still often be classified in the same genus even if DNA evidence shows it's more distinct than plant C which looks completely different but has a much closer evolutionary relationship based on DNA analysis.

The problem is that most taxonomists still let very human emotions get in the way of classification, they decide to overrule objective DNA evidence where it offends them for some reason.

But even where DNA evidence is used it's not used in a consistent way. If you have two specimens of living creatures whose DNA is 0.001% different then they may be classed as the same species if they're animals, but different species if they're plants, all to satisfy the human trait of the fact that if that 0.001% difference is visually obvious in one species but not in another then the person classifying will make a different arbitrary decision to someone else.

So when the levels of difference that define where a specimen is a different species, different genus and so forth are still arbitrary then most taxonomic classifications are still completely meaningless from a scientific standpoint.

It all comes down to the fact that taxonomy just doesn't know what it is - most proper scientists would argue they need it to be a tool that allows them to refer to different types of living thing or the same living thing in an objective manner, yet most taxonomists just treat it as a non-science (but still like to call it a science) that's used to provide convenient names for things in garden centres, zoos, museums and so forth even if those names are completely arbitrary, contradictory, and of no consistent scientific merit. So it becomes a fundamental question of who taxonomy is meant to serve? scientists by providing objective ways to refer to living things, or your average joe to give sloppy, often scientifically inaccurate but convenient names for things. Effectively taxonomy needs a formal split into two practices- strict taxonomy and casual taxonomy with each providing different taxonomic definitions, one formal, objective and useful to science, the other arbitrary, but simple and convenient.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[delt0r]

The problem with this idea, is that it would make a great food source to the much faster replicating, and therefor evolving traditional life forms.

Re:Have we discovered all there is to discover?

[shaitand]

Yup, can you imagine the sort of lifeform that could exist as a conciousness with erosion as it's neural process? To it we MIGHT amount a short lived bacterial infection.

Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

Define life...

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

Historically, "Life" has been defined as being any phenomenon that possesses all 5 life processes:

#1 Food intake/ nutrition
#2 Respiration
#3 Excretion
#4 Growth & Repair
#5 Reproduction

However, this seems to have been expanded to 7:

#1 Movement
#2 Respiration
#3 Sensitivity
#4 Growth
#5 Excretion
#6 Reproduction
#7 Nutrition

This is for "Life" in the generalized sense, fully abstracted away from any specific mechanisms by which those processes may be achieved. It is perfectly sensible for an artificial lifeform to be constructed, as long as it is able to fully carry out those processes. It needn't have any organic components whatsoever.

Nowhere in the historical definition of "life" used by life science is there a requirement for specific mechanisms-- just processes.

Re:Discover life?

[gameboyhippo]

That is the question. I think what these scientist mean is that life is a "naturally occurring" complex and organized set of matter that can reproduce and consume energy. So naturally occurring mechanical entities may be alive where as a robot built by man wouldn't.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

I've never seen that list without "adaptation". Evolution and life are essentially inseparable.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

That would be "Sensitivity"/Responds to stimulus.

Evolution is the phenomenon that occurs as a result of living organisms responding to changing stimuli in their environment, coupled with the need to consume energy to procreate and survive.

If the phenomenon consumes energy, reproduces, and responds to stimuli, it will experience evolution.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

the only thing that goes against entropy ?

Re:Discover life?

[khallow]

Evolution and life are essentially inseparable.

Then you don't need to include "adaptation".

Re:Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

And a robot built by another robot? What would that be? Really, what happens when we mechanize everything?

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

I would consider #6 reproduction the most crucial one. Growth, nutrition, respiration and excretion are basically requirements to get (sustained) reproduction, while movement and sensitivity aren't strictly needed.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

No, not at all. Response and evolution are distinct.

Survival of the fittest has nothing to do with individual response to individual stimuli.

A self-reproducing system that does so perfectly, with no errors won't ever change, and isn't really alive.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

That's like saying "energy and life are essentially inseparable, thus you don't need to include respiration"

Logical equivalence is one of the best things to have in a definition. A->B && B->A means that A defines B.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

#6 Reproduction

This means that mules are not alive. Something is seriously wrong with your source.

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

A self-reproducing system that does so perfectly, with no errors won't ever change, and isn't really alive.

If it is successful at surviving, why would it need to adapt to be alive ? Maybe it's already perfectly adapted to its environment.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

There is no such thing as perfect replication.

Such an organism may evolve slowly, but since there is no such thing as perfect data copy, (Even in computers-- which is why RAM has such things as ECC, and uncorrectable errors) the organism would still evolve.

Even if we go full on SciFi Robot Apocholypse here, we have the potential for manufacturing defects in the replication process prohibiting perfect program upload, and other forms of imperfect data transfer/replication, which will have cumulative effect given sufficient time.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

#1 Movement #2 Respiration #3 Sensitivity #4 Growth #5 Excretion #6 Reproduction #7 Nutrition

The "movement", "respiration", and "excretion" requirements would disqualify most plants. On the other hand, a robot can already be made to satisfy all 7...

Re:Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

Survival of the fittest has nothing to do with individual response to individual stimuli.

Well, indirectly it does. Those who respond a certain way might be more likely to survive and prevail, passing on all their goodies to the next generation.

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

Plants do have respiration and excretion.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

There is such a thing as perfect replication... say... in the context of software, or so near that evolution is impossible.

You send the bits, you send them in an error correcting code format. You send a checksum as well. And you send them on a channel that's designed to completely fail if the noise is sufficient to cause errors, the entire message fails.

The number of bits that have been sent this way over the internet this way are over quadrillions, and the numbers of errors that wouldn't be caught by a trivial checksum are zero.

A self-replicating worm on the internet doesn't evolve or adapt. And thus none of them are still around.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

Okay, obviously pedantic point completely ceded.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A self-reproducing system that does so perfectly, with no errors won't ever change, and isn't really alive."
Obviously you have never put on a fury suit to experience what its like to be perfect, only then are you truly alive!

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

The TCP checksum is only 16 bits, so there are plenty of errors that aren't caught.

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

So if someone succeeds in building a living cell from scratch, you wouldn't consider it really alive ?

Re:Discover life?

[mjm1231]

Evolution/adaptation does not occur within a single organism. If you include that in the definition, then a parent and child combined might be "life", but each of them separately would never qualify. That doesn't really make sense.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

Your proposal still does not have 100% reliability.
You will find that even crazy-expensive cloud appliances do not guarantee 100% availability and uptime. They offer "four 9s" of availability. 99.99%.

Network worms do not have fully dynamic programming, and even then, are not alive, because they don't eat. ;P

Stargate "replicators" ate-- network worms dont.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire is a phenomenon that consumes energy, reproduces and responds to stimuli. Can fire evolve?

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

It doesn't need 100%. It just needs greater odds than the sum total of instances of the duplications that will happen under its current design.

Then *kaput*.

Re:Discover life?

[Khashishi]

Have we yet built a self-replicating robot? (without cheating)

Re:Discover life?

[Khashishi]

So, is fire alive? A key qualification has to be heredity, otherwise you can't rule out simple chemical reactions like fire.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

You can't really separate a living things' existence from its ancestors like that. It's like if you had a child in a room by themselves and went "HA, HUMANITY ISN'T SOCIAL CREATURES."

(Sorry for making fictional you so shouty)

Re:Discover life?

[Endlisnis]

By these criteria, mules are not alive and fire is.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

place a lit candle into the microwave, set it on high, then press start.

You will observe "fire", an exothermic reaction involving carbon and oxygen, evolve into a plasma energy phenomenon.

Evolution is a process. The presence of evolution does not itself indicate life.

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

Or we can decide to call fire alive.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

Plants do have respiration and excretion.

Only if you creatively redefine both of the terms to mean something they don't in a colloquial usage. Which, in turn, would make the great-grandparent's definition of life useless — because it did not contain the necessary (re)definitions of the terms it used.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Your going about your definition backwards. Your defining life by adding requirments till the list only matches terrestrial life. You could just as easly add DNA as a requirment. That would also rule out chemical reactions like fire.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

why care about "naturally occuring"? Dogs are not naturally occuring. Neither are GMO crops. They are alive.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

Have we yet built a self-replicating robot?

We may have. But if we haven't, it is only for lack of interest — not because it is not possible.

without cheating

A lot of human self-replication involves cheating, why rule it out?

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

No, there's no need for creatively redefine these terms. Plants do have respiration and excretion. Example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... :

During prolonged darkness, plants with low carbohydrate reserves exhibited a lower whole-plant respiration rate, which decreased rapidly to almost zero after 24 h, and carbohydrate pools were almost exhausted in leaves, roots and flowers

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

http://www.biology-online.org/...

Already covered for some time.

And plants DO engage in carbon dioxide release type respiration. They do it at night, when they are not photosynthesizing, and are metabolizing stored sugars.

They also excrete through structures called stomata, found on the undersides of leaves, and in the grooves of stems.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Individuals don't evovle. Life is a property that individuals have. There are lots of organisms that attempt to reproduce perfectly. The individuals are alive. Most of the individuals reproduce perfectly.

Re:Discover life?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I thought there were only two necessary processes:
#1 Hereditary reproduction
#2 Metabolism

The reason viruses aren't considered alive is because they don't metabolize. Admittedly, though, I'm not a biologist.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Your deffinition would exclude tissue and organs. The skin on my arm is alive. How my skin reproduces does not effect its evolution. Only the sperm and egg cells experiance evolution.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

A fury suit? Is that one that you wear when you are particularly angry? Sounds aggravating to me...

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

They also excrete through structures called stomata, found on the undersides of leaves, and in the grooves of stems.

Not all plants have stomata ("stomas" would've seem like proper English). Non-vascular ones do not — are moss and algae not alive?

And we still need to deal with the movement requirement...

Re:Discover life?

[itzly]

But moss and algae do respirate and excrete, even if they don't have stomata.

Re:Discover life?

[Dragonslicer]

Plants do have respiration and excretion.

Only if you creatively redefine both of the terms to mean something they don't in a colloquial usage.

Or if you use the scientific definitions instead.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

Sunflowers.

Named, because they move their flowers to track the sun.

Then there is the dodder vine..

Plants move all the damn time.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

My car breathes, excretes, senses, and eats. It neither grows nor reproduces, true, but then it moves — unlike plants...

The proposed definition of life is crap.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

Plants move all the damn time.

Some plants move. Most plants don't. All of them are alive, contrary to the proposed definition. Ergo, the definition "needs work".

Re:Discover life?

[jeffmflanagan]

And movement, so mi is 3-times wrong. Plants may not get up and walk around like Triffids, but they do move toward light.

Re:Discover life?

[gameboyhippo]

I doubt that could happen from scratch. So far humans have only been able to make life from life. Which makes sense.

But if one would build an organic cell from scratch, is it life or is it a gooey robot?

Re:Discover life?

[Insanity Defense]

Plants do have respiration and excretion.

Only if you creatively redefine both of the terms to mean something they don't in a colloquial usage. Which, in turn, would make the great-grandparent's definition of life useless — because it did not contain the necessary (re)definitions of the terms it used.

Since the terms are used here in a scientific context colloquial definitions do not apply but scientific ones do.

Re:Discover life?

[jeffmflanagan]

You were entirely wrong, and have a wingnut sig, so I'm not surprised you failed to learn and kept arguing instead. Give it up. You live an alternate reality where you redefine everything to mean what you want it to mean, so you're never going to make any sense to the reality-based community.

Re:Discover life?

[gameboyhippo]

why care about "naturally occuring"? Dogs are not naturally occuring. Neither are GMO crops. They are alive.

They use natural process to exist and they come from naturally existing life. A scientist doesn't create a tomato from scratch. He reprograms existing life to manipulate life. Same with dogs. Dogs are breed using natural mechanism (fertilizing eggs, etc...) Nobody just builds a dog from scratch.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

No, ALL plants move. Some move more perceptibly than others. The two examples I gave were "Very noticeable movement", but even grass moves.

There are several mechanisms by which a plant may be able to move. The most common is "Phototropism", but there are other forms of plant movement, including those responding to tactile stimulous, and many others

Your argument is what needs work.

Re:Discover life?

[HiThere]

What do you mean "cheating"? Many parasites can only exist and reproduce in extremely specialized environments.

Re:Discover life?

[rogoshen1]

doesn't that lead to some circular reasoning?
"what is A?" -> "b"
"well what is B?" -> "it's a".

Re:Discover life?

[HiThere]

I think you need to think more carefully about metabolism. If a virus not alive because it externalizes its metabolism? Many forms of life externalize, say, their digestion, and yet we still say they digest their food.

Re:Discover life?

[ceview]

Agreed. The classic example of fire fits almost all definitions of life. The reason fire isn't 'alive' is because it doesn't contain the ability to evolve via natural selection via some sort of informational content.

Re:Discover life?

[i kan reed]

It's not circular reasoning when you're defining a term.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

have a wingnut sig [...] You live an alternate reality

Ad Hominems... A sure sign of an Illiberal losing his argument before even entering it...

Re:Discover life?

[david_thornley]

We can, in principle, find out exactly how a sufficiently simple life-form is put together. There's no obvious reason why we couldn't construct one out of simpler, definitely not living, chemicals. It would be a very large project, but it appears doable. Given two identical single-cell organisms, one from nature and one from the lab, does it make sense to call one life and one a gooey robot?

Re:Discover life?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Digestion is not metabolism.

While I agree that there are forms of life that externalize digestion, I challenge you to show me one that externalizes metabolism. Viruses might be an obvious candidate, except that they're not considered to be forms of life (I believe precisely because they are not capable of metabolism).

But again, I'm not a biologist. My understanding of this subject is informed primarily by the writings of physicist Freeman Dyson.

Re:Discover life?

[mi]

Your argument is what needs work.

I don't really have one — I was offered a definition and saw a number of problems with it. The best I hear back is that "science" defines a number of things — such as breathing, excretion and even movement — differently from the rest of the world.

To me, for example, moving one's leaves or fingers is not "movement" — changing one's location is. Moss can't do it — not on its own volition, anyway — so it is not "alive"...

And if a definition requires so many clarifications (if not outright redefinitions of other terms), then it is a bad definition, that's all.

Re:Discover life?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Also, I truly love your sig.

Re:Discover life?

[lgw]

I'm sure there was a lot of life on Earth that was perfectly adapted before the Oxygen Catastrophe. As has been said before "evolution proceeds in spite of natural selection".

Organisms well-adapted to their niche are the norm. But when the environment changes, as it so often does, suddenly only the outliers - the poorly adapted mutants, barely surviving - are the winners.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Definition of natural:

existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.

Dogs and GMO crops are artificial lifeforms. They were caused by humankind. If humans did not exists then dogs would not exist. Humans don't create anything from scratch. We always create using a mix of natural and artificial parts. Everything we create is artificial by definition.
Definition of artificial:

made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural

Definition of supernatural

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Re:Discover life?

[Oligonicella]

Oh bull. Your preconceived notions have nothing to do with whether something lives or not.

Re:Discover life?

[Chalnoth]

I honestly have always been annoyed with this rather restrictive definition. It excludes viruses, but I can see no reason why we should consider viruses to be a completely different category than living organisms.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Of course dogs are more natural than robots. They are more natural than alot of human creations. They are less natural than wolves. I don't want to discus if ghosts are alive.

Re:Discover life?

[Grizzley9]

Historically, "Life" has been defined as being any phenomenon that possesses all 5 life processes:

#1 Food intake/ nutrition #2 Respiration #3 Excretion #4 Growth & Repair #5 Reproduction

However, this seems to have been expanded to 7:

#1 Movement #2 Respiration #3 Sensitivity #4 Growth #5 Excretion #6 Reproduction #7 Nutrition

This is for "Life" in the generalized sense, fully abstracted away from any specific mechanisms by which those processes may be achieved. It is perfectly sensible for an artificial lifeform to be constructed, as long as it is able to fully carry out those processes. It needn't have any organic components whatsoever.

Nowhere in the historical definition of "life" used by life science is there a requirement for specific mechanisms-- just processes.

By your second list, some forms of organized sets or software can be considered life.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Historically, "Life" has been defined as being any phenomenon that possesses all 5 life processes:

#1 Food intake/ nutrition #2 Respiration #3 Excretion #4 Growth & Repair #5 Reproduction

However, this seems to have been expanded to 7:

#1 Movement #2 Respiration #3 Sensitivity #4 Growth #5 Excretion #6 Reproduction #7 Nutrition

This is for "Life" in the generalized sense, fully abstracted away from any specific mechanisms by which those processes may be achieved. It is perfectly sensible for an artificial lifeform to be constructed, as long as it is able to fully carry out those processes. It needn't have any organic components whatsoever.

Nowhere in the historical definition of "life" used by life science is there a requirement for specific mechanisms-- just processes.

Well then my car is considered alive and fulfills all these depending on how you define each of those terms. What about moss? It doesn't move.

Re:Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

Well, you did specify nothing, as in nothing, at least that is what the word means to me... Relax... You don't need to get all defensive about it :-)

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

fully synthetic biology is closer than you realize.

This is from 2 years ago-- Researchers succeed in creating fully artificial cell membranes

This from about 4 years ago-- First fully reproducing bacterium with fully synthetic genome

This is from last year-- Creating synthetic ribisomes

For real, being able to fully engineer a cell from the ground, all the way up, is fast leaving the exclusive realm of science fiction, and entering the realm of science fact.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given your Slashdot Id you should have been here when it was reported on slashdot.

Re:Discover life?

[Lazere]

This is a scientific definition of life, so why the hell would we use the colloquial definitions of the other terms? They don't give a shit what you think the definition of movement is, so long as they are using the consistent, agreed upon definition.

Re:Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

Ohhhh no... I'm not trying that one again... First my iPhone, and now this?

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is fire alive? A key qualification has to be heredity, otherwise you can't rule out simple chemical reactions like fire.

Sorry, but heredity an assumed qualification. Else show the proof. Current evidence is merely supporting evidence, not proof. It's sometimes hard to separate the rules from the assumptions. At the Institute we specialize at analyzing rule-based systems, and the heredity component of this argument is an assumption.

-Director, Intractable Studies Institute

Re:Discover life?

[jd]

We have two options here.

Option #1: Include all organisms that are "alive" by some definition at two points in time (A and B) are alive at any point in time between A and B.

This eliminates all definitions that exclude known states for organisms. Which is most of them. All five "life processes" can be suspended in most/all organisms for indefinite periods of time. Since they are indefinite, you cannot assume any finite span of time being involved and therefore it is not the possession of properties that matters, only the potential for possession.

In fact, everything has to be written as potentials, in this model. There is nothing in this model which states that any feature has to exist simultaneously with any other feature.

Option #2: Abandon all notions of "life" entirely and go from the ground up.

There is fundamentally no distinction between living and non-living. All matter is "non-living", any concept of "life" has to be an abstract, non-physical concept that isn't binary but a gradation. In other words, it's not a property something has, it is a magnitude of a property of a collection of properties that something has. This model is necessary if you adhere to the deep oceanic origin of life theory. In this model, life formed in the deep oceanic trenches from an iron/sulphur matrix around which organic molecules (some sinking from the surface, some formed at the trench level) were bound. Since there is no binary living/non-living state in this model, this proto-proto-life must have a non-zero magnitude. (It is clearly more than the non-living structures around it, since it is a gateway to life, but it is clearly less than anything we'd classically consider "living".)

I would argue that in this model, anything that meets the classic five life processes meets or exceeds some threshold boundary, which you are entirely at liberty to call 1.0. Quasi-living things cannot equal or exceed this threshold value, definitely living things cannot fall below it. Furthermore, since all known living organisms contain processes that are critical to the function of the organism and which must have evolved at some point (something only living systems are capable of), all sub-processes of any living organism must have non-zero life, no matter how simple. (In computing terms, if you only have a notion of programs, then threads, procedures, functions, etc, are program-lites but still programmatic in nature.)

You will notice that in neither of these have I actually specified what a living organism must possess. In the first case, there must only be potentials for processes that are counter-entropic, but there is no formal description of what those processes would be. I don't need them to define life, I only need to know that counter-entropic behaviour of some sort is a non-zero possibility. In the second case, I don't even bother considering entropy. It is sufficient that there be a process which, by stepwise refinement, can be shown to be a valid sub-process at some depth of analysis of life. It simply doesn't matter if it organizes into something that is living in some sense we don't know about, just as in programmatic terms you don't care what links to a library file. If it contains some identifiable sub-process that has the potential to be a key part of a living thing, then it has non-zero life and whether that life meets some criteria or other can be left to biologists and philosophers.

These are, in my arrogant opinion, superior to classical definitions because I'm not looking at a specific something and calling it a benchmark. Which, from the perspective of early science, meant humans. If you like, I'm looking only at the fundamental specifications involved and saying that if there is non-zero overlap and that overlap is necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) for life, then whatever possesses that overlap possesses enough to be considered on the spectrum.

I accept, completely, that this still doesn't guarantee covering everything. It does cover ALife and AI (provided that

Re:Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

Oh now you done it! now we gotta define 'own' and 'volition'...

And I hope you're not to going to tell us than somebody in coma is not alive because he can't move.

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

Thankfully for you, the internet is FILLED with people that like to microwave dangerous things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think #2 Respiration, #5 Excretion, #6 Reproduction, and #7 Nutrition are highly assumed preconditions. Just because biological life forms require these doesn't mean we can conclude all possible life forms in the universe are biologically based. The proper way to state these 7 is like this: "Biological life forms on earth require these 7 processes." Adding the biological and earthly qualification makes it clear there is a biological presumption as observed on earth, and correctly says nothing about non-biological life forms, especially not trying to apply a limit to the unknown. It's a far more general thing to try to claim all life in the universe is biological.

The Intractable Studies Institute has done a considerable amount of work on this subject. We've already re-defined sentient life, universal categories, and pre-requisites for intelligent life. Our Project Andros will culminate in a sentient (as we define that) android life form of the Director in the android robots mind by 2017. We have 3 Communications of the Institute that cover generalized intelligent life in the universe fairly well, each is 1 page with pictures. Since we don't publish in Scientific journals it's likely these Communications flew under the radar, our usual mode of operation.

http://intractablestudiesinstitute.org/communications/LifeFormCategories.pdf
http://intractablestudiesinstitute.org/communications/L8_IQ_Scale.pdf
http://intractablestudiesinstitute.org/communications/Sentience.pdf

Here is the masterpiece:
Whenever we talk about life in the universe, we need to be careful to not constrain it's definition by our own simple life form, with all it's failings, and our limited experiences. We must especially be careful to not place human beings above all other life that's possible. That's a common error humans make, an assumption that says much about our limited intelligence. The Institute has defined the L8-IQ-Scale to be universal, a very broad generalization (see above pdf and here it is without pictures):

Meta rules
1. The L8 IQ Scale is universal to any life form.
2. IQ measurer/measuree near same speed of thought.
3. Pre-requisites come before L8 IQ tests.
4. Some life forms can start at LN where N>2 (AI).
5. L8 IQ has a time component.
6. LN must be sustained or drops.
7. Measurement not done on self.
8. Only scientists measure L8 IQ.

Pre-requisites
1. Able to react to stimuli.
2. Able to remember stimuli.
3. Able to think.
4. Able to remember thought.
5. Able to act at liberty

L8 IQ Scale
L1 - Focus is hunger/energy depletion.
L2 - Hunger/energy depletion is solved.
L3 - Self-centered existence, greed.
L4 - Self-less and altruism.
L5 - Knowledge base = belief, perception and hearsay.
L6 - Knowledge base = proof, reality and facts.
L7 - Intolerant.
L8 - Tolerant.

[each pair of N and N+1 are like a hurdle to clear, 4 hurdles: odd is tested and failed, even is cleared]
Rule: LN (N even numbered) can only be achieved when N and lesser even-numbered N are achieved. L8 = L[8642].
Rule: The L8 IQ tests are not exams. They are evaluated in real world life experiences.

So, the L2 level addresses the #2, #5 and #7 above as L2 Energy replenishment or die (L1).

Sincerely,

-Director, Intractable Studies Institute

Re:Discover life?

[fustakrakich]

Oh lord! If only the internet was filled with people who know how to use a camera and edit footage...

Re:Discover life?

[smellsofbikes]

Even cooler -- or, really, hotter -- is thermoregulating plants. The sacred lotus maintains a nearly constant, well-above-ambient temperature in its flowers for several days while they're most fertile.

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess you've never had garden. Plants definitely move, just much more slowly than animals. Try putting a plant in a pot and turning it away from the sun. It'll be back toward the sun later that day. Put the resources somewhere else, and the plant will grow its way over to them and let the old bits die off. My mint plant kept getting into the compost heap. Bloody mint...

Re:Discover life?

[wierd_w]

This is the internet we are talking about.

Do you honestly expect professional standards? ;P

Re:Discover life?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The number of bits that have been sent this way over the internet this way are over quadrillions, and the numbers of errors that wouldn't be caught by a trivial checksum are zero."

And that is patently false. Checksums are designed to reduce errors, not prevent them. It is a probability thing, not a safeguard.

As for your example of a self-replicating worm, the problem there is a numbers game. A gene can change slightly and the organism can still survive and reproduce. This is typically not the case if an instruction changes. And then you have the problem that there are over 3 billion base pairs that are copied. A typical worm is orders of magnitude smaller, and even if a bit did degrade, typically that would sterilize the worm (as it would no longer be able to function, and hence, would be much more difficult to evolve). That doesn't mean the copy was perfect.

Re:Discover life?

[MightyMartian]

Actually no. Evolution is about variation already present in populations and selective pressures "choosing" which variations will be more likely to be passed on to the next generation. In a way it is the polar opposite of what you are saying.

Re:Discover life?

[fudmer]

Algorithmic regeneration on the fly, irt stimuli, is more sustainable than survivor reproduction? Energy system capable to support a response to at least one system detectable stimuli seems to be the most basic definition of life. A self organized energy system which responds in predictable ways to system detectable stimuli, meets the basic defintion of life because it consumes, uses or produces energy, it responds to stimuli, it exist as a consequence of stimuli, and its algorithm for organization irt stimuli provides for its sustained geneation to generation presence (reproduction) ( algorithmic generation is a form of reproduction; survivor reproduction is the form we understand) on the spot self organization might turn out to be more sustainable than individual to indivudal survivor reproduction.

Re:Discover life?

[mjm1231]

Bad analogy. An individual organism can exhibit social behavior, but it cannot evolve.

Re:Discover life?

[Arterion]

I want to split a hair here. Say we mastered biological science completely. And we could manufacture some means to alter our DNA arbitrarily, and then "adapt" ourselves however we saw fit without the need to grow a new self. Would we perhaps consider each successive alteration a "generation"? Or perhaps the more familiar theme of growing a new body in a lab, then transferring consciousness into it (either by brain transplant, computers, or some kind of fully organic nervous system interface, idk.)

Of course it sounds entirely like science fiction, but it seems like being able to intelligently alter ones own genetic composition as needed would be an incredible boon for survival. I guess it really makes me wonder if technological development isn't somehow the endgame for evolutionary processes. Of course you go far enough with technology and you can then do whatever you want with it.

Re:Discover life?

[serviscope_minor]

The problem with insisting on reproduction is that you have to be very careful unless you wish to classify mules as "not alive". There are many, many sterile organisms. Worker insects are another good example of ones made intentionally. And of course many members in each generation of more or less anything will be incapable of reproducing.

Re:Discover life?

[serviscope_minor]

but then it moves â" unlike plants...

Since when don't plants move? Sure they don't move on human scales over human time scales. If you think plants don't move however, you need to look more carefully. The easiest way of doing that is to set up a timelapse camera to point at a plant during spring or summer and watch at 1000 times realtime or faster. That will ignore many of the microscopic processes however.

Re:Discover life?

[serviscope_minor]

I'm at a loss to understand how you refuse to accepts the existence of facts you could verify yourself for free. All you need is a plant (they *do* grow on trees you know), a laptop with a builtin camera and some time lapse video recording software, all of which is free. This isn't like "big science" where you need a few hundred billion to build a new CERN. If you don't feel like waiting for spring, then go and buy a $2 packet of cress seeds.

Science doesn't define movement any differently from anyone else (except you who likes to exclude categories of movement you don't happen to like). Just go and watch a plant over a long timescale and try and say it doesn't move.

Or just go and watch "the private life of plants", where the BBC has done all the hard work for you.

End results: Plants move.

Re:Discover life?

[HuguesT]

Not by itself. Enough said.

Re:Discover life?

[HuguesT]

We have built machinery that can be used to replicate the same machinery (e.g. 3D printers), but not by themselves. This is hugely difficult: even making simple plastics is hard work and requires lots of resources.

Re:Discover life?

[ZombieBraintrust]

It also doesn't work when you start talking about cells in your body. Sure they reproduce and mutations can occur. But most of your cells don't participate in evolution at all. Their mutations don't pass on to your offspring.

Re:Discover life?

[khallow]

A->B && B->A means that A defines B.

No, it means that they are logically equivalent. You can define however you want.But my view on the above, is that if you manage to find some phenomena that satisfies that list of things, then will you really rule it out, should it not show adaptation (at least not immediately, like say, a von Neumann machine)?

Re:Discover life?

[RockDoctor]

People have been stabbing at that particular log in the fire for decades. There is no generally accepted definition. People who are crucially concerned with the question (e.g. Origin of Life researchers - real ones not delusional Creationist) don't see it as being a pressing problem, but do have intermittent bouts of "whack-a-definition", with typically several dozen contenders coming to the table, and most of them leaving with some bruises, but no killer blows.

What we really need is a second group of organisms that are generally accepted as "alive", but significantly different to the DNA-RNA-protein system that is currently most well understood. Even a Frankenstein cackling in Hollywood-ese that "It's ALIVE!!!!!" over some misbegotten sludge in a test tube would be illuminating, if it didn't contain life as we know it.

'Bones' was classically cautious : "life, but not as we know it".

Re:Discover life?

[Draugo]

Go watch "The Private Life of Plants" before making basic level mistakes.

Duh.

[pushing-robot]

Because dragons are really cool.

Re:Duh.

[Tablizer]

Until you have to clean up their poop.

Re:Duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

If North Korean Scientists can find unicorns, who is to say that Sarah Palin won't discover dragons in her backyard tomorrow?
Anything is possible
with the right amount of acid
man

Re:Duh.

[Draugo]

I'd love to clean up dragon poop. It would a) mean that I have a dragon and b) be a great source of revenue since I could sell it to new age hippies as a natural cure for their aura imbalance or something.

GOD?

[Chexsum]

its life jim but not as we know it

Re:GOD?

[Anonymous Coward]

its life jim but not as we know it

... not as we know it, not as we know it.
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, Captain.

There's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow ...

is this news?

[Triklyn]

I was under the impression that news was about you know, new things. This is just an article highlighting that money has up until now been targetted toward things we are pretty sure exist. you know, novel creatures not using radically different genetic bases. This is just some dudes going, "yup, there might be more out there than we thought" which is you know, the basic premise of all the sciences.

Come back to me when they actually find something that uses a sixth nucleotide.

Incidentally, where might this new life have hidden, that we haven't searched already. We've got extremophiles in the middle of godforsaken rocks already... there aren't that many new places that i imagine we

A. haven't looked already
B. aren't already colonized by the cousins we know.

Generally speaking, the new life would need to be able to outcompete, in certain circumstances, the stuff we know or it wouldn't survive too well the 2 billion years that bacteria have dominated the planet.

i'd think the only viable thing would be viruses, maybe, and us not fully understanding them. but then i'd imagine if an different nucleotide were somehow incorporated into a virus we'd already found, it'd also be present enough to show up as an unknown nucleotide. Might not know what it was, but we'd most likely have an idea that it were there.

Re:is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come back to me when they actually find something that uses a sixth nucleotide.

Uhh, looks like someone's a few years behind on their science.
"The base 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) is the most abundant of these oxidation products and is referred to as the sixth DNA base."
http://www.epigeneticsandchrom...

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

oh, you know what i mean.

A, G, C, T/U

epigenetic modification is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Re:is this news?

[penguinoid]

Come back to me when they actually find something that uses a sixth nucleotide.

Here you go.
http://motherboard.vice.com/re...

Well, it's more like "created" than "discovered", but it is does have 6 base pairs in its DNA (and replicates them).

Re:is this news?

[quantaman]

I was under the impression that news was about you know, new things.

If that's your criteria for science news then you're going to get low quality science news because new science is typically wrong in some way.

This is just an article highlighting that money has up until now been targetted toward things we are pretty sure exist. you know, novel creatures not using radically different genetic bases. This is just some dudes going, "yup, there might be more out there than we thought" which is you know, the basic premise of all the sciences.

Come back to me when they actually find something that uses a sixth nucleotide.

Incidentally, where might this new life have hidden, that we haven't searched already. We've got extremophiles in the middle of godforsaken rocks already... there aren't that many new places that i imagine we

A. haven't looked already
B. aren't already colonized by the cousins we know.

Generally speaking, the new life would need to be able to outcompete, in certain circumstances, the stuff we know or it wouldn't survive too well the 2 billion years that bacteria have dominated the planet.

i'd think the only viable thing would be viruses, maybe, and us not fully understanding them. but then i'd imagine if an different nucleotide were somehow incorporated into a virus we'd already found, it'd also be present enough to show up as an unknown nucleotide. Might not know what it was, but we'd most likely have an idea that it were there.

It's more than that.

For one they do cite evidence in the form of viruses with what seems to be very old DNA that isn't present in current known lifeforms. They figgured the viruses got those codes a very long time ago and had merely preserved them but they're now exploring the possibility those lifeforms are still around somewhere.

It also mentions they're beginning this new line of investigation, developing techniques to look for novel lifeforms that wouldn't be detected under current methods, for instance looking for DNA bases that aren't used by any known organisms. I think the start of the investigation is newsworthy in itself, if you only hear about the discoveries you're missing out on a lot of the story.

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

i specified find, because i did read a bit of the article too.

Re:is this news?

[Doubting Sapien]

That's a pretty narcissistic and arrogant world view which does little to advance the current state of knowledge. When we stop daring to think ambitiously and asking improbable questions about the world around us, we settle into a valley of complacency from which we loose the momentum of curiosity that has driven science and technological innovation. Imagine Einstein never bothered to write that letter which lead to the Manhattan project. Or if DARPA thought the packet switching ARPANET was a waste of time and money. Or if the DOE thought sequencing the human genome was someone elses responsibility.

Believe me, as a lab rat who's been doing bench work in molecular and cell biology for the last 3 years I am more qualified than anyone to sing the praises of our current power to probe the depth, diversity, and extent of life. It is easy for me to sympathize with those who are jaded by these routine "miracles" where we can send out a DNA sample and have it sequenced overnight. If we wanna know something, the answer is literally a bunch of mouse clicks and a few pipette pumps away. Not much to get excited about at all.

But any self respecting biologist who works with modern molecular tools and technique has seen the frightening pace of progress that has allowed us to do the previously unimaginable. For example, the 2007 Nobel prize was awarded for the development of the "knock-out" mouse. This has lead to all sorts of experiments that has elucidated protein (mal)functions that have lead to a revolutionary understanding of countless diseases and illnesses. In more recent years, we are poised for another such quantum leap with bacteria-derived "genomic editing" techniques such as TALEN and CRISPR that allows us to make precise changes in the DNA of model organisms.

If biologists have the mindset you espouse, that everything worth discovering has been found, none of these type of breakthroughs would be possible. I've talked to colleagues who often muse wishfully, "If only we can do ****** more easily, our experiment would be so much better." There isn't one among us who don't hope some newly discovered microbe from the deep ocean or where ever will lead to some new technique or method that will allow us to do different kinds of experiments to generate data we didn't think was possible to collect.

And that is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It has been pointed out before that more people have walked on the moon than been to the deepest part of Earth's oceans. Of the little bit we have seen down there, entire ecosystems run on biochemistry that might as well be from another planet. You think it is *easy* to go down there and do science on those critters? There is a reason why astronauts outnumber aquanauts and ease/simplicity isn't one of them. You can't just bring them to you either because, those organisms don't live in the kind of environment we operate most lab equipment.

And it isn't necessarily about who can out-compete who on this planet. Everyone gets to shine in the spot light because everyone potentially has a role to play on the stage of life. How unimpressed will you be if it is discovered that some newly identified ocean trench bottom dweller can help us clean up the "Deep Horizon" oil spill in the gulf of Mexico? Or what if some rare sparsely growing thing-in-a-rock synthesizes a potent life-saving anti-cancer compound? We are not out to make discoveries for something that can necessarily colonize and take over the planet. The motivation for such quests are as varied as life itself, but for me personally, it is about finding something that can be of use to humanity. New biology may mean our current tools/techniques don't work. But therein also lies opportunities for new technologies and new discoveries. And you can bet there will be spin-offs to spare!

Sure, it may be not much more than viruses we find out there. There may NOT be some exotic thing out there that confounds established biology of life. But who are YOU to say? Plenty of reputable scie

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

:) was being a bit snippy.

my point being, they're not reporting a new discovery of any kind. they're announcing the start of a new line of inquiry... which, you know is exactly the thing that you do when you're not satisfied with the old line of inquiry.

the title and summary are specifically highlighting that scientists think other life forms exist that may be more novel than we previously thought.

my question would be... did this thought just occur to you? that maybe we don't know everything about the way life can be expressed? it's news that some people have suddenly decided to stumble upon a realization that most people have already had?

my first thought when reading the article was "no duh"

Re:is this news?

[quantaman]

:) was being a bit snippy.

I share the same tendency :)

my point being, they're not reporting a new discovery of any kind. they're announcing the start of a new line of inquiry... which, you know is exactly the thing that you do when you're not satisfied with the old line of inquiry.

the title and summary are specifically highlighting that scientists think other life forms exist that may be more novel than we previously thought.

my question would be... did this thought just occur to you? that maybe we don't know everything about the way life can be expressed? it's news that some people have suddenly decided to stumble upon a realization that most people have already had?

my first thought when reading the article was "no duh"

For me the bulk of the article talking about the problem of detecting novel forms of life on earth was setup, ie you're reading a science story here's the background. The actual payload was the bit about the new methods they're developing now. I do agree they could have highlighted the new advancements a bit better as that part was a bit vague.

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

scoop*

I wasn't complaining that they were looking for it. I was complaining that it was worth reporting on. Looking in the unlooked at corners is standard practice. As far as i know.

The deep waters are inhabited by our cousins, as are the boundaries of space. Inside rocks, inside boiling sea vents. The very idea that some things outcompete others is one of our basic immunological defenses.

That we haven't seen something already, on the bacterial stage at least. Seems to indicate that our current scheme had some competitive advantage over others in the distant past. Or we would have found a bit more evidence of radical genetic diversity. That means for the most part that we could only find these kinds of organisms in extremely isolated environments. Which is why i brought up the extremophiles.

the bottom of the ocean, is pretty damn connected to the rest of the ocean. Competition is fierce for resources. And unless you can suck down sulphur compounds you're going to have to compete with everybody else for scraps.

I doubt you'll find much outside of novel viruses because bacteria infest every corner of our world. around you, on you, inside you, above you and below you.

Re:is this news?

[Oligonicella]

So you yourself admit your "Here you go" was bogus as a response to his statement.

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

well the new methods were kind of behind a paywall. It they weren't i'd have to reevaluate their newsworthiness.

Re:is this news?

[penguinoid]

We found it in a lab.

Re:is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

the point was that we ALREADY have found life forms that are radically different from others living in places we previously thought they couldn't live.

AND that there's not new places accessible to look for them - and that we have looked at ice, rock and lava samples quite extensively already.

the scientists who wrote this fart are basically 60 years late to the party and I suppose they're just asking for money to go look for new places. not to go look at a new place mind you, but just money to think of new places to look at! it's not arrogant to say that they're stupid, greedy or arrogant(yes, it is them who are arrogant of other scientists who have been looking for life in new places for the past 60+ years. there isn't that many new places to go look for new kinds of, even microscopic, life).

except space of course, but hey, why not worry about how to get there first.. I'm half expecting these fucks are proposing to explore some newage shit about crystals being living beings with souls or some shit like that.

Re:is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it doesn't compete with existing life forms, it would not be displaced.

Consider on a galactic scale--life that thrives around red dwarfs might not even interact with life around yellow dwarfs, and even exist in nearby systems without competing.

Re:is this news?

[Doubting Sapien]

I don't necessarily disagree with you completely. But I think your point is badly argued and perhaps unnecessarily harsh.

>As far as i know.

THAT is pretty much what it boils down to... WHAT do you know? HOW do you know it? Is it really fair of you to dismiss a position where one only seeks to know more than what you currently know?

>The very idea that some things outcompete others is one of our basic immunological defenses.

I don't know where you pulled this out of or where you're going with it. Perhaps a point can be made about host immunological tactics and responses to pathogens in the context of ecological adaptation and niches. But to draw some kind of connection via competition for resources is a pretty awkward and bizarre way of making that point. And what is purpose of bringing this up in the current context? Are you suggesting if our immune system doesn't need to handle something that can't compete in our ecological backyard, we shouldn't bother? I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but that is not a very scientific perspective.

>That we haven't seen something already.
>I doubt you'll find much outside of novel viruses because bacteria infest every corner of our world. around you, on you, inside you, above you and below you.

Are you sure you would know even if you were looking at it? Moreover, what are you looking with? If as it was postulated, a non-DNA based genetic code was used, our existing assays may not pick up anything at all. I'm not going to dive into a discussion about laboratory science just yet. But let's pull back for a minute and consider something even more conventional. There is a enigma in microbial ecology sometimes called "The Great Plate Count Anomaly" that simply stated is the fact many more microbial organisms exist than we can culture in the lab. Recent advances in metagenomic techniques has allowed us to sequence the DNA of these previously un-grow-able bugs and given microbiologists their first look at stuff they've never seen before. And this is only within the last couple of years.

New discoveries and advances are occurring much more recently than you believe. A few months ago, I came across a bit of relatively new research where modern techniques identified some symbiotic bacteria in the gut of an insect called the glassy winged sharpshooter which finally explained how it was able to feed on relatively un-nutritious xylem that lacked essential nutrients required for survival. It turned out there was a previously unknown microbial community in this hard to observe environment with different bacteria synthesizing different nutrients crucial for this insect's survival. Discoveries like this are possible because obstacles exist but researchers never stop asking how we can overcome the limits of existing methods and techniques. There are countless examples of such "things we haven't already seen" to paraphrase you. And I am confident that if we should dare to extend our search as was urged in the paper, we'll open up new door we can't even dream of at the moment.

I guess I can't really fault you for your perspective as it appears biology isn't your field of expertise. But for those of us bio-hackers here on slashdot, compelling questions of what we should be looking for and where/how to look for it, is most definitely "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters". For the good of the community, I would ask that you and others not try to knock something simply because you don't understand it. Please try not to ask questions on the premise of unfounded assumptions.

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

>The very idea that some things outcompete others is one of our basic immunological defenses.

competition for real estate on our skin and in our gut by benign flora is one of our basic immunological defenses. it was an example of competition for one of those basic resources, space.

again. my point wasn't not to look. My point was that until you find something, it's really not worth mentioning. especially since they don't really talk about novel techniques at all outside of a paywall.

At this point, the main topic of the article is pure speculation, the journal publication may be more focused on technique, and i seriously hope it is, but Science lists it as "Perspective" so you know, fingers crossed. The claim made in the article has as much positive evidence as aliens. The title is sensationalist, and everybody except maybe the actual authors of the paper do a poor job of summarizing their work. Also it's 2 pages, so that better be some dense fucking prose to get into any detail of any actual science.

There's are place for novel techniques to be discussed in a niche field. Conferences and lab meetings. This probably doesn't belong on slashdot because it's light on actual news, light on details and... wait never mind, whens that ever stopped things from being on slashdot? Being published already puts it in front of the eyes it would need to be put in front of. This isn't ready for public consumption.

I'd be more than happy to read about truly novel techniques, but i'm odd that way, and this article doesn't actually talk about any.

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

:)
i wonder how they knew where to look? :)

Re:is this news?

[Triklyn]

not that many out-of-the-way places left to look... except inside things, and talk about hostile environments that bacteria dominate.

Pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

Pictures or it doesn't exist/didn't happen.

Spock was probably right

[idontgno]

"It is not life as we know or understand it. Yet it is obviously alive, it exists"

--Spock, "Operation -- Annihilate!"

Re:Spock was probably right

[Anonymous Coward]

Spock was probably wrong. He should have said:

"It is unclassifiable life as predicted by Tanja Woyke and Edward Rubin in a 2014 Science article".

Re:Spock was probably right

[way2slo]

Devil in the Dark is the more appropriate episode.

Spock: "Within range of our sensors, there is no life other than the accountable human residents of this colony beneath the surface. Eh, at least, no life as we know it. "

Here is what I heard

[Anonymous Coward]

That life here, began out there.

Probably.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hardly be surprised if there were many forms of life that co-existed in the RNA world days, and eventually they just lost out to RNA and then DNA because maybe it is more efficient at replication.

There are thousands of stable molecules, some we have even made, that can support a similar system of structure like DNA and can be made fairly easily with low energies.
We know even DNA can replace a phosphor base with a more energetic arsenic and still function, more or less.
Most likely there were more energetic forms of life that could survive back in the hotter early days that died off as Earth cooled.
Maybe we will find that some planets that are really hot do in fact have some form of life, give at least some liquid is present that can be used for transfer and energy. (like water)
Hell, we may even find them as we dig deeper in to Earth and find caverns even deeper than the ones we have found so far with ancient life in them.
Let's just hope we don't find no temples.

What there likely isn't, though, is nuclear creatures living on the surface of stars.

Re:Probably.

[Anonymous Coward]

... Let's just hope we don't find no temples.

Now I'm thinking 'Strata' (T Pratchett) and the real-world mystery of objects out-of-place.

It's life, Jim...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but not as we know it.

Re:It's life, Jim...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, someone beat me by 10 minutes!

I told you so. Leprechauns exist

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

And the angels too. Don't forget the ghosts, wraiths, phantoms, etc.

And the zombies. Never forget the zombies.

Re:I told you so. Leprechauns exist

[XxtraLarGe]

And the zombies. Never forget the zombies.

Is undead the same as alive?

Re:I told you so. Leprechauns exist

[Triklyn]

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die

Re:I told you so. Leprechauns exist

[Chris Mattern]

Is undead the same as alive?

Well, mostly dead is the same as slightly alive...

WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

Just WOW!

DNA/RNA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't they have any imagination?

"Generalized Life"

[radtea]

Massive generalization has been good to the sciences.

In physics, we have used invariance principles to expand our definitions to the most general possible. This was the argument behind General Relativity, for example: Einstein wanted equations of motion that would be invariant under any smooth second-order transformation whatsoever, and when he put that constraint, and only that constraint on, he found the most general form of the equations of motion were uniquely determined (up to a constant of integration, which is the Cosmological Constant).

Biologists have generally shied away from this kind of approach to their field, but there is an argument to be made that there is an equally general definition of "life" as "anything that participates in a process of evolution by imperfectly heritable traits that result in differential reproductive success". It need not be tied to any particular concrete mechanisms like DNA and RNA.

This idea may turn out to be silly (which is why I wrote a novel about it rather than a scientific paper: http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-...) but well into the 1800's there was no general view of "energy" that unified all the disparate forms, to the extent that the fact that light had energy that was in any way related to mechanical energy was not really appreciated. The kind of unified view of energy we have today would have seemed bizarrely speculative at that time, in the same way that the notion of a unified, generalized view of life is purely speculative today, but it turned out to be amazingly useful, so it's worth considering the possibility in biology today (anti-science people will likely attack it as a waste of money, using computer technology that would not exist without a similar "waste" on ridiculous fantasies like quantum theory and "obviously useless" research into the basic physics of semi-conductors in the past.)

Re:"Generalized Life"

[HiThere]

There are a lot of things that fit that rather abstract description that I don't consider life, but which I do consider evolving. Stars for example. More recent generations of stars have evolved to consist of more heavy elements than did the earlier generations. (Granted parentage is a bit difficult to specify, as the parent is generally long dead before the descendant is born. And, of course, the Hydorgen involved is primordial, but then so are the elements of any life form, what matters is the organization...for some meaning of organization.)

Re:"Generalized Life"

[pesho]

Generalization on the very basic level has also been applied to the definition of life. In my opinion one of the best definitions of life boils down to defining life as a dynamic system which increases and maintains its order in expense of increasing the entropy of its surroundings. Needless to say this definition was put forward by physicists (Bolzman, Schrodinger). Biologist would probably like to add ability to reproduce and evolve, but I don't think this is fair. A mule is a life form, right?

Re:"Generalized Life"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why go far for an example -- look at our planet. Hot on the inside, moves on the outside. We are more like parasites on the surface.

Re:"Generalized Life"

[Pfhorrest]

Yes, this! The way I like to phrase it is that "life is self-productive machinery", where "productivity" is defined as a property of mechanical work such that that work decreases the entropy of the system it acts upon. Life is then any physical system that transforms some kind of energy flow through it (i.e. is a machine, does work) in a way that causes its internal entropy to decrease (necessarily at the expense of increasing the entropy of the environment). The operating conditions of such a machine are the conditions in which such life can live.

By this definition, all traditional (DNA-based) living things are alive, but viruses are not (despite reproducing), fire is not (despite consuming energy and reproducing), crystals are not (despite reproducing and reducing their internal entropy — because they are not doing the work that reduces their entropy, they don't consume energy to do that, they have to have energy removed from them and then that just happens spontaneously), and perhaps most interestingly, computers are: the processing and storing of information is a reduction of their internal entropy, and they are machines that consume energy to accomplish this. A computer that built other computers that built other computers (etc) would undeniably be artificial life... but then if we add "reproduces" to the requirements, as you say, mules are out, and we definitely want them in, more so I think than we want non-reproducing computers out.

Re:"Generalized Life"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of things that fit that rather abstract description that I don't consider life, but which I do consider evolving. Stars for example. More recent generations of stars have evolved to consist of more heavy elements than did the earlier generations. (Granted parentage is a bit difficult to specify, as the parent is generally long dead before the descendant is born. And, of course, the Hydorgen involved is primordial, but then so are the elements of any life form, what matters is the organization...for some meaning of organization.)

The sentient Crystal Cores of Stars might beg to differ.

Why Hasn't Anyone Thought Of This Before

[lys1123]

This is revolutionary. An amazingly original idea, perhaps some life form that is silicon based instead of carbon based, with no DNA, hiding at the bottom of a mine shaft or something. A Devil in the dark if you will.

I just wonder why no one has ever though of this before now.

Re:Why Hasn't Anyone Thought Of This Before

[Anonymous Coward]

No kill I. You can even have that silly pump unit thingy back so that you can steal some more pergium from our planet...

Re:Why Hasn't Anyone Thought Of This Before

[R3d M3rcury]

It has been thought of. The issue here is "How do you look for something as general as 'life'?"

Consider the various probes we have launched to Mars that are looking for signs of life currently or formerly existing. When we say that, though, we're looking for signs of life kind of like what we know on Earth. Which is great. But if we don't find any, it's tough to say definitively that life doesn't exist on Mars because what if it's a different form of life that we don't understand?

Re:Why Hasn't Anyone Thought Of This Before

[Triklyn]

looking for signs of life that we don't really understand is a wild goose chase. We know that life as we know it... you know works, we can't check for every type of "maybe" that exists.

Our definitions are never going to be complete.

[KraigGeise]

We need to move beyond a definition of life and start to any organization of energy as a potential lifeform, we may be wrong but better to study and conclude that is is not then to pass by and never study and per chance to find something new.

Re:Our definitions are never going to be complete.

[TapeCutter]

That's too general to be useful, yes life is a process not a thing, but it's a process that has a particular set of properties, we don't have a universal definition of life but one thing that all definitions agree is required is self-replication. However self-replication alone is not sufficient to define life since crystal growth has the property of self-replication but few people believe animals are a form of protein crystal that spontaneously replicates.

Cyrstals!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Andromeda! =)

If there ever was a nebulous article...

[pesho]

The original article is pure speculation. Can life exist that is so different from the stuff we know, so that we can't detect it with current molecular biology techniques?

Sure why not. What the article fails to mention is that we can find life in other ways. Even if we can't sequence the DNA in many cases we can culture microorganisms from environmental samples. We can also use microscopy to directly examine environmental samples. In fact both the microbial cultures and microscope have been done on large scale over many years. Not once have we seen an organism that does not conform to our current understanding of life on earth. Life can also be identified by the changes in the environment it create. Again nothing we have seen so far has suggested that there is a life form so unusual that we can't detect it with our current techniques.

Where authors of the original article fail most miserably is their solution: high throughput sequencing techniques. Huh? How would those techniques lead to the discovery of life that is fundamentally different if they are dependent on the standard properties of DNA and DNA replicating enzymes??

Companies are people too

[Anonymous Coward]

Thoughtforms are not even made by matter but are still very much alive. Companies for instance are made out money and make believe, but they still have personhood

Is there scientific consensus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there scientific consensus on this, say like 97%?

Just checking...

Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Wicked cool. I always thought Archaea warranted more attention than they got. Something weirder still would be great. I hope this speculation turns out to be correct.

Re:Happy Friday from The Golden Girls!

[o_ferguson]

Thanks for this. Is it weird that I actually missed it?

Re:Happy Friday from The Golden Girls!

[Triklyn]

yes, freak

Ignorant to believe otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

Space is big, really big etc etc

The idea that carbon based life is the only kind of live in the universe is just plain ignorant. We are a tiny speck in an almost infinite universe of which, when rounded down, we know exactly sod all about. To think we can be the only life forms to evolve in it is frankly insulting to anybody with even a vague interest in cosmology.

I can state with 100% certainty that there are carbon and other element based life forms elsewhere in the universe; to think otherwise makes you no better than those who continue to dispute the moon landings or those who believed the earth was flat.

You mean the "Shadow Biosphere"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shadow Biosphere

The Sound of Music ...

[eric31415927]

... with which the hills are alive.

The Horta. Tholians. Andromeda.

[mmell]

I didn't even have to think too hard about that, and the list just goes on from there. Those are all from sci-fi, but the sci-fi authors who invented them didn't make 'em up all by themselves. There were serious scientists even fifty and more years ago who were theorizing about such ideas.

The internet

[StripedCow]

The internet is a life form:

1. it is growing (new devices are added every day)
2. reproducing (new subnets are created every day)
3. functional
4. continually changing

Re:The internet

[RockDoctor]

Is the internet growing / reproducing using material which it has metabolised itself from non-life sources? Does some inorganic algorithm called "Cisco Corp" autonomously instruct some hydraulic jack in a Chinese rare-earth mineral mine to scoop up ore into a bucket labelled "for Internet", and then dispatch it for processing.

While the internet portrays many fascinating behaviours, including it's influence of living organisms, I don't think you can call it alive until it, itself, controls it's own metabolism. For the present, and probably for the foreseeable future, that is commanded by human beings who use the internet it is true. But does that make the seawater that certain primates use to wash the dirt off their food alive as well? It's just a tool that is being used. (I'll cede the possibility, but I don't see the reality at the moment.

Not everything ...

[PPH]

... is made of meat.

bravo

[MakersDirector]

*Q The Timelord claps his hands empathically*

"By George I think they're getting it!," Q says in his best third person impersonation!

Just wait until they cross the Astral Plane

[jsepeta]

I can't wait until they find the Pegacorn. I am SOOOO getting one.

Re:The Horta. Tholians. Andromeda.

[jsepeta]

TRIBBLES!

Sasquatch

[PopeRatzo]

I choose to read this summary as evidence that scientists believe Bigfoot exists.

Because, that would be so cool.

I agree! -Director, Intractable Studies Institute

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, some open minds and free-thinkers point out the obvious, that we make many assumptions about what life is like based on our limited experience here on the Earth. It is refreshing to see scientists thinking outside the box.

http://www.hdfilmx.com/

[vodafonesertac]

http://www.hdfilmx.com/karanli...

Asimov: "Not as We Know it"

[phaunt]

I'll confess immediately that I didn't read TFA. I just want to drop this link to a nice Isaac Asimov essay, back from 1962:
Not as We Know it – The Chemistry of Life

Remember that Asimov was a professor of biochemistry. In the article, he investigates alternatives to the chemistry of life as we know it. He comes up with the following list:

[H]ere, then, is my list of life chemistries, spanning the temperature range from near red heat down to near absolute zero:
1. fluorosilicone in fluorosilicone
2. fluorocarbon in sulfur
3.*nucleic acid/protein (O) in water
4. nucleic acid/protein (N) in ammonia
5. lipid in methane
6. lipid in hydrogen
Of this half dozen, the third only is life-as-we-know-it. Lest you miss it, I've marked it with an asterisk.

When you read the article, you may want to skip the first bit and start from about the paragraph "Well, that's what I want to discuss."

Formics

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I suppose the Ender's World Formics would fit somewhere in there...

It's Life...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's life Jim, but not as a know it....

Re:It's Life...

[Anonymous Coward]

*we

duh

[schlachter]

Duh.

There will be trillions of life forms across a trillion times as many planets across a trillion times as many stars...and that's just in our known universe. Of course we have no idea what they will look like.

We are always at the drawing board

[KatieLee]

Science, biology in particular, is the study of life and the intricate processes that shape our planet. We need not know exactly how everything fits into the grand scheme of the world, because, after all, what fun would that be? And, on a picky side note, Eukarya, Archaea, and Bacteria are domains, not kingdoms. To say that there are organisms that "don't fit into those classifications" is pure bogus, in my opinion. How about Protista (that is a kingdom)? These have animal and plant like characteristics. The whole point of the Linnaean classification system is to put organisms into the big picture based on the evidence and knowledge we currently possess. And, the point of the five Kingdoms (Animalia, Plantae, Protista, Fungi, and Monera) is to BROADLY classify organisms based on their method of obtaining energy (autotrophy v. heterotrophy, or both) and their fundamental cell characteristics. And of course there are places we haven't searched for new species; maybe we should focus more on discovering life and appreciating the amazing diversity of life and the inherent value of every organism rather than sending monkeys to Mars.

The forms are man-made, but the life within is not

[inflamed]

In countless ways, spatiotemporally proximal organisms interact bi-directionally. For an extreme example: A student tends a dish of cells and the student's subsequent experiences (including chances of reproducing) are affected.

A succesful student gains momentum for a career boost, rocketing towards a tenure-track job-chase. Unsuccessful students are more likely to reproduce.

Two of these life forms live in my house!

[Tony Isaac]

They are sometimes referred to as "teenagers."

Re:Prions

[Anonymous Coward]

Prions don't use proteins, they are proteins. Specifically misfolded proteins. I would argue that they are more of a sophisticated poison than a parasite.

FINALLY Something Quasi-intelligent from Bio

[fygment]

It's a small step, but it is nice to see that biology, or a small subset of the community, recognises its limitations.

And also tacitly admits that it is not a science, but butterfly (or creature) collection.

Awesome would be to see biology grappling at establishing 'first principles', like physics, so that researchers would be able to theorize intelligently about biological possibilities. and this paper is a first step in that direction.

Re:Discover life? But I know it when I see it

[JamieMcGuigan]

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." - United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

Re:The Horta. Tholians. Andromeda.

[mmell]

I think Tribbles were carbon-based life with DNA.

Politicians misidentified

[RAVEN2]

So we've been wrong in saying politicians are slime molds? Sorry slime molds for the comparison. Maybe someone should examine Ted Cruz as a candidate for a new genus. Zipperheadiea.texassious

Re:Prions

[HiThere]

Sorry, but you have only identified a subset of prions. The larger number take raw materials put together by cells and fold them into images of themselves...which enables them to do the job needed by the cell. In doing this they are "taking an available resource" and transforming it into a copy of themselves.

Occasionally one will misfold...i.e. suffer a mutation during reproduction. This new copy will also take available resources and transform it into copies of itself. Often these new forms will be either useless or actively harmful to the cell that is building the proteins. Sort of destroying the environment that allowed them to floruish.

It's true I am specifically using words to describe the actions of the prion that are typically used for organisms, and I'm doing it with intent, but they are also accurate descriptions.

Someone else commented about this as an example of "the tyranny of the discontinuous mind", and they're probably exactly correct. This is a case where classifying something as either alive or not alive isn't helpful.

Gödel?

[sabbede]

Sounds like incompleteness to me.