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Life on earth may have emerged not once, but twice. A new study argues that the transition from chemistry to biology happened twice; bacteria and archaea, the first two branches of the tree of life, each sprung separately
Yeah I read the ACTUAL published paper, and 2 distinct events isnt even remotely what it proposes. It proposes a transitional, "primitive" metabolism that could chemically exist without enzymes to catalyze them. Then it proposes that LUCA had this and diverged into bacteria and archae, which then did different things.
Exactly. I think what people have a hard time wrapping their heads around is that LUCA probably went back much further than they could comprehend to the point that its metabolism probably did not involve many enzymes/complex proteins. We know DNA replication systems arose separately at least twice (Bacteria vs. Archae/Eukaryotes) just based on how homologous proteins between the groups are not evolutionarily related but perform the same functions. Patrick Forterre has written some fascinating papers on how he thinks this all happened.
If this holds up it means the transition wasn't some one-off miracle but something that could happen whenever conditions lined up right. Suddenly the search for life elsewhere looks a lot less hopeless and a lot more like waiting for the second or third try.
Abiogenesis seems to have happened surprisingly rapidly after conditions on the early earth were stable enough.
Thats why my personal hunch is that the universe is probably teeming with very simple life. Wouldn't be shocked at all to find it in our own solar system, perhaps in subsurface oceans of moons like europa which seem to have significant tidal flexing and hydrothermal vents that would appear conducive to life.
Complex life and especially intelligent life I am personally skeptical we'll ever find it. I'm sure it exists out there, but I suspect it happens so infrequently in the universe, both temporally and spatially, that we'll never happen upon it.
Even if intelligent life occurred in most solar systems, would we necessarily have found it yet? We’ve been able to monitor things like radio waves for what? 100 years? It’s entirely possible that any kind of signal they’d send out hasn’t reached us yet or we missed it. That’s a relatively slim stretch of time. And not to mention, if we are anything to judge by intelligent life might have a tendency to self destruct from its own hubris.
Or the intelligent life is actually already here and needs a warmer environment so they’ve convinced us to ignore global warming. That’s the conspiracy theory I’m starting anyway. Republicans or reptilians?
The republicans are always going on about illegal aliens, right? What if it's just projection to keep us off their tracks. The republicans have been the illegal aliens all along...
It's a shame really, they could've been a chaotic good bunch of nutters instead of chaotic bad. Still would've been a pain in the arse to interact with through.
Hard agree on the slim stretch of time thing. I'll add that I recall reading back in early 2000 that the increase in short range radio emissions and corresponding decease in long range radio emissions had hit the point 20 odd years ago where earths "ears" then would have trouble detecting ourselves from more than 5 light years away and yet the long range radio emissions from the 70s/80s could've been detected up to 100 light years away.
Personally I tend to assume it's a mix of things; as in some people's are simply too dumb to avoid self-extinction, some evolve on worlds that are doomed(great novel called The Crucible of Time by John Brunner that follows a people's quest to survive such a world), some just choose to stay quiet, some are advanced enough to use communication methods that we simply can't detect, etc etc.
I have thought that life as we understand it could be a convergence of different independent lines of chemical evolution. This is to say I actually subscribe to multiple theories of abiogenesis all playing a role in the real story of life. Like maybe there were self-replicating RNA plasmids (RNA world) and also phospholipid bubble formations without genetic material and at some point, some RNA plasmid found its way inside one of the phospholipid bubbles and now it's a rudimentary cell.
It did not occur to me that LUCA might not have been alive. For all their differences, bacteria and archaea, still share a lot. They metabolize. They share genetic code. The same genetic sequence can make the same protein in either, like all life on Earth. The article describes LUCA as metabolizing and spawning new life with its genetic material. Maybe they want to call this chemical evolution, but I don't know, it seems kind of alive to me.
Environmental pressures and time. Easy enough base explanation. The finer details are difficult, sure. But to say what you suggested is not plausible doesn’t make very much sense in itself, imo.
The exact same genetic code? There are more possible codes than there are stars in the universe. Two of them coming up exactly the same on the same planet at about the same time seems to be so unlikely as to be safely discounted. There’s no relevant selective pressure that could result in all the codons that start with CC translating to proline. That’s a chance event, and it simply will not have happened twice in the only two separate lineages. They developed this together.
There must be some confusion here, because the study didn’t claim that there were two entirely separate origins without a common ancestor. They say that the lineages that lead to archae and bacteria developed independent complete enzymatic metabolism.
I hate to ruin this for you, but it’s almost certainly not true that our genetic code is the only genetic code to have arisen on Earth. It’s just the only one that has been successful. Many people in the replication world are 99.9% certain many other alphabets arose but just petered out eventually. There are papers on synthesis of different codes under the exact primordial conditions that probably happened on this planet a few billion years ago.
I have an hypothesis about this and I think it is very true.
My hypothesis also leads to this. Not just twice, but multiple Times.
So many times until they have understood how to reproduce. Because the earliest form of life would definitely not be having this functionality of producing a similar replicating copy of itself.
So it has to emerge from the basics so many times that until once they hit the right stop, and the life emerged from the very basics were also capable of reproduction.
You are full of shit. There is "true" and there is "false". A hypothesis ends up to be "true" or "false". It starts out being "unproven". The fact that you're using phrases like "very true" means you know nothing about formulating hypotheses or the scientific method.
That’s a bit harsh. We’re on Reddit not in a scientific congress where everyone is aware of all the rules. It would be kinder to nudge the person in the “right” direction than to put them down
You can be kind, I'm not going to put up with stupidity. Look at what not confronting reality has brought about: Trump is preparing an executive order "linking' vaccines to autism.
ColonelFaz | 14 hours ago
The actual researchers who published do not propose 2 abiogenetic events. That's a bit of a fringe interpretation.
Smirky-McLurky | 11 hours ago
Yeah I read the ACTUAL published paper, and 2 distinct events isnt even remotely what it proposes. It proposes a transitional, "primitive" metabolism that could chemically exist without enzymes to catalyze them. Then it proposes that LUCA had this and diverged into bacteria and archae, which then did different things.
PomeloSuccessful6450 | 6 hours ago
Exactly. I think what people have a hard time wrapping their heads around is that LUCA probably went back much further than they could comprehend to the point that its metabolism probably did not involve many enzymes/complex proteins. We know DNA replication systems arose separately at least twice (Bacteria vs. Archae/Eukaryotes) just based on how homologous proteins between the groups are not evolutionarily related but perform the same functions. Patrick Forterre has written some fascinating papers on how he thinks this all happened.
OVazisten | 13 hours ago
The usual nothingburger.
They claim that they arose from the same ancestors, but that same ancestor was not deemed to be "alive".
drmissmodular | 14 hours ago
Fully plausible and ultimately impossible to prove. It’s good and healthy to have multiple working hypotheses on the origins of life.
klyzklyz | 13 hours ago
So say the biblically inclined!
KeanuRave100 | 14 hours ago
If this holds up it means the transition wasn't some one-off miracle but something that could happen whenever conditions lined up right. Suddenly the search for life elsewhere looks a lot less hopeless and a lot more like waiting for the second or third try.
HuckleberryPee | 13 hours ago
Abiogenesis seems to have happened surprisingly rapidly after conditions on the early earth were stable enough.
Thats why my personal hunch is that the universe is probably teeming with very simple life. Wouldn't be shocked at all to find it in our own solar system, perhaps in subsurface oceans of moons like europa which seem to have significant tidal flexing and hydrothermal vents that would appear conducive to life.
Complex life and especially intelligent life I am personally skeptical we'll ever find it. I'm sure it exists out there, but I suspect it happens so infrequently in the universe, both temporally and spatially, that we'll never happen upon it.
Homerpaintbucket | 13 hours ago
Even if intelligent life occurred in most solar systems, would we necessarily have found it yet? We’ve been able to monitor things like radio waves for what? 100 years? It’s entirely possible that any kind of signal they’d send out hasn’t reached us yet or we missed it. That’s a relatively slim stretch of time. And not to mention, if we are anything to judge by intelligent life might have a tendency to self destruct from its own hubris.
Or the intelligent life is actually already here and needs a warmer environment so they’ve convinced us to ignore global warming. That’s the conspiracy theory I’m starting anyway. Republicans or reptilians?
HuckleberryPee | 11 hours ago
The republicans are always going on about illegal aliens, right? What if it's just projection to keep us off their tracks. The republicans have been the illegal aliens all along...
Homerpaintbucket | 10 hours ago
And since every accusation is a confession…
CatGooseChook | 12 hours ago
There's a movie with that premise, The Arrival 1996.
Homerpaintbucket | 11 hours ago
Weird that Q Anon didn’t glom onto that one
CatGooseChook | 5 hours ago
It's a shame really, they could've been a chaotic good bunch of nutters instead of chaotic bad. Still would've been a pain in the arse to interact with through.
CatGooseChook | 4 hours ago
Hard agree on the slim stretch of time thing. I'll add that I recall reading back in early 2000 that the increase in short range radio emissions and corresponding decease in long range radio emissions had hit the point 20 odd years ago where earths "ears" then would have trouble detecting ourselves from more than 5 light years away and yet the long range radio emissions from the 70s/80s could've been detected up to 100 light years away.
Personally I tend to assume it's a mix of things; as in some people's are simply too dumb to avoid self-extinction, some evolve on worlds that are doomed(great novel called The Crucible of Time by John Brunner that follows a people's quest to survive such a world), some just choose to stay quiet, some are advanced enough to use communication methods that we simply can't detect, etc etc.
EarthTrash | 13 hours ago
I have thought that life as we understand it could be a convergence of different independent lines of chemical evolution. This is to say I actually subscribe to multiple theories of abiogenesis all playing a role in the real story of life. Like maybe there were self-replicating RNA plasmids (RNA world) and also phospholipid bubble formations without genetic material and at some point, some RNA plasmid found its way inside one of the phospholipid bubbles and now it's a rudimentary cell.
It did not occur to me that LUCA might not have been alive. For all their differences, bacteria and archaea, still share a lot. They metabolize. They share genetic code. The same genetic sequence can make the same protein in either, like all life on Earth. The article describes LUCA as metabolizing and spawning new life with its genetic material. Maybe they want to call this chemical evolution, but I don't know, it seems kind of alive to me.
cleverYeti42 | 8 hours ago
Paywall
taktaga7-0-0 | 14 hours ago
How could you possibly explain the miraculous convergence, say, of the proteinogenic amino acids or the entire genetic code?
I don’t think multiple origins will ever be plausible. Life is just too similar.
OVazisten | 13 hours ago
They don't. They just claim, that their last common ancestor was not "alive". So nothing changed, they just want to move the threshold of "life".
Kinda_Zeplike | 14 hours ago
Environmental pressures and time. Easy enough base explanation. The finer details are difficult, sure. But to say what you suggested is not plausible doesn’t make very much sense in itself, imo.
taktaga7-0-0 | 11 hours ago
The exact same genetic code? There are more possible codes than there are stars in the universe. Two of them coming up exactly the same on the same planet at about the same time seems to be so unlikely as to be safely discounted. There’s no relevant selective pressure that could result in all the codons that start with CC translating to proline. That’s a chance event, and it simply will not have happened twice in the only two separate lineages. They developed this together.
Kinda_Zeplike | 11 hours ago
There must be some confusion here, because the study didn’t claim that there were two entirely separate origins without a common ancestor. They say that the lineages that lead to archae and bacteria developed independent complete enzymatic metabolism.
PomeloSuccessful6450 | 5 hours ago
I hate to ruin this for you, but it’s almost certainly not true that our genetic code is the only genetic code to have arisen on Earth. It’s just the only one that has been successful. Many people in the replication world are 99.9% certain many other alphabets arose but just petered out eventually. There are papers on synthesis of different codes under the exact primordial conditions that probably happened on this planet a few billion years ago.
kollmastee | 7 hours ago
Could be three as it has been theorized that the emergence of viruses was separate or came before the rest of life on earth.
indubitably_ape-like | an hour ago
Bs, they both use the same DNA bases and amino acids. Thats literally their blue print and building blocks. What is this crap?
Distinguishedflyer | 12 hours ago
third time's the charm.
AryanPandey | 14 hours ago
I have an hypothesis about this and I think it is very true.
My hypothesis also leads to this. Not just twice, but multiple Times.
So many times until they have understood how to reproduce. Because the earliest form of life would definitely not be having this functionality of producing a similar replicating copy of itself.
So it has to emerge from the basics so many times that until once they hit the right stop, and the life emerged from the very basics were also capable of reproduction.
DrillPress1 | 14 hours ago
Very true? It’s either true or it isn’t
AryanPandey | 14 hours ago
Very true means near true. I am not able to verify it because I was not there at that point of time.
By the way do you understood my hypothesis.
Available-Square619 | 14 hours ago
I mean it’s not a hypothesis because it’s not based on any science or evidence, just saying it should do that because reasons lol.
AryanPandey | 13 hours ago
Hypothesis does not require evidence.
It's tested on evidence it is made up on reasoning
DrillPress1 | 13 hours ago
You are full of shit. There is "true" and there is "false". A hypothesis ends up to be "true" or "false". It starts out being "unproven". The fact that you're using phrases like "very true" means you know nothing about formulating hypotheses or the scientific method.
Purple_Revolution146 | 12 hours ago
That’s a bit harsh. We’re on Reddit not in a scientific congress where everyone is aware of all the rules. It would be kinder to nudge the person in the “right” direction than to put them down
DrillPress1 | 12 hours ago
You can be kind, I'm not going to put up with stupidity. Look at what not confronting reality has brought about: Trump is preparing an executive order "linking' vaccines to autism.
bertch313 | 13 hours ago
Mushrooms are likely all that remains of one of these mass rise and die offs
They're likely older than bacteria and that's why they seem alien.
bwc6 | 11 hours ago
Mushrooms are eukaryotes. They have mitochondria, which are descended from bacteria. Mushrooms are not as old as bacteria.