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Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

the-scientist.com

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Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#201

Post by throwawaymaths »

roywiggins wrote: post #142
throwawaymaths wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. > Should work be started on developing mirror immune system cells, just in case? 2. by way of direct response to your question. mirror nutrients (like scavenged AAs, even for autotrophs) are liable to be very scarce so they'll have one hell of a disadvantage makimg it on this world.

Not if you engineer your mirror bacterium to eat normal nutrients to get them started. Or they scavenge enough non-chiral molecules to eat that they get the opportunity to evolve the capability on their own.

building from non chiral molecules is prototrophy, not scavenging. anyways, existing lifeform already scavenge mirror molecules (especially d-ala since thats used in cell walls) so they are already competing in a quite saturated environment with highly adapted organisms.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#203

Post by kragen »

meiraleal wrote: post #195
kragen wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Argentina nor Brazil has ever had nuclear weapons, although both countries did historically produce low-grade enriched reactor fuel. Argentina resumed its enrichment activity in 02015. Brazil resumed its enrichment activity in 02006 but still does not have enough production capacity to supply even its minuscule fleet of nuclear power stations.

> Neither Argentina nor Brazil has ever had nuclear weapons Brazil holds the key technologies to develop it and the sixth bigger deposit of uranium (with only 30% of the territory mapped). The navy is even currently developing a nuclear submarine that will be totally based on local technology.

Yes, both Argentina and Brazil could produce nuclear weapons, given enough time and effort, but neither one of them has ever had them. Neither does either country currently have plans to produce or acquire nuclear weapons, as far as is publicly known. So they are not examples of countries that gave up nuclear weapons.

A nuclear submarine is also not what is meant by "nuclear weapon", although it is arguably a weapon and has the word "nuclear" in its name. The phrase "nuclear weapon" conventionally refers to "atomic bombs" and "hydrogen bombs", which are bombs powered by respectively fission and fusion. A nuclear submarine is just a regular submarine powered by a nuclear reactor. Brazil already has many nuclear reactors that are in some sense "totally based on Brazilian technology" and has for decades.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#204

Post by kragen »

kragen wrote: post #173
serial_dev wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how every arms race starts. "The baddies will use this as a weapon, so we need to get ahead of this, and manufacture the nastiest variants we can come up, so that we know how to DEFEND against them. It's defense, I say!"... Then eventually there is a lab leak, and there is a pandemic on your hand.

A lab leak of racemic sulfonilamide or ciprofloxacin would not only be a non-event; it's probably something that happens regularly already. The issue would be if people were harvesting their mirror penicillin from mirror mold or something.

This should say "sulfanilamide", which is a sulfonamide, thus my spelling confusion.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#205

Post by achierius »

kragen wrote: post #177
btilly wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several other countries also gave them up with better results. Including South Africa, Sweden, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Belarus and Kazakhstan are vassal states of Russia now and for the foreseeable future; possibly they will be annexed officially at some point, like the Crimea and probably Donbas. Sweden would probably still be neutral if it hadn't given up its nuclear weapons; it seems to be at significant risk of being invaded by Russia again (it was invaded in the 18th century and again in the 19th), which is why it joined NATO in…

Kazakhstan is by no means a Russian vassal state, and is in essentially no danger of annexation. It's worlds away from Belarus.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#206

Post by achierius »

exe34 wrote: post #70
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't get funding for your research, or publish under your real name if you do, it's certainly going curtail research at least. It could still happen if some nations refuse to endorse the ban, but there will at least be less of it, which means less risk.

That is to say, our enemies will master it first and we will be caught with our pants down.

This sort of rhetoric is disgusting, and likely the exact sort that will lead to mass death incidents in our lifetime. I hope you think about that when such comes to pass.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#207

Post by ufo »

mattclarkdotnet wrote: post #171
philipkglass wrote: post #4

The full report is here: "Technical Report on Mirror Bacteria: Feasibility and Risks" https://purl.stanford.edu/cv716pj4036 The premise reminds me of the "Rifters" trilogy by biologist and science fiction author Peter Watts. In it, an archaic deep sea microorganism "ßehemoth" that outcompetes all other kingdoms of life is brought to the surface and wreaks global havoc as it spreads. https://www.rifters.com/maelstrom/…

Peter Watts’ work is indeed bleak, harsh, but brilliant. I thought Blindsight was a hard read but the Rifters trilogy is another level

For what it's worth the Blindsight pwoerpoint presentation is kind of funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEOUaJW05bU

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#208

Post by blargey »

proto-n wrote: post #192
danwills wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a great question! But I also think it's similar in a way to 'why matter and not antimatter' or 'why ~3d space rather than no structure' (much less obvious the second one!). But I think the real answer here is touched-on by nmstoker in a sibling comment: We're so far down the energy-gradient of the current-default-chirality on earth, that it would take exploration of an insanely-deep valley for all mole…

But then this is also an argument against spontaneous emergence of life, right? Sicne mirror-life could just emerge on its own, instead of evolving from regular life.

Even if the timescales and environments conducive to the emergence of basic life exist on Earth today, I would expect any spontaneously-emerged proto-cell to almost immediately get eaten by normal microorganisms without any meaningful chance to proliferate. Reverse-chirality or no, it'd be a glorified bag of nutrients compared to the more evolved flora surrounding it.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#209

Post by eightysixfour »

proto-n wrote: post #192
danwills wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a great question! But I also think it's similar in a way to 'why matter and not antimatter' or 'why ~3d space rather than no structure' (much less obvious the second one!). But I think the real answer here is touched-on by nmstoker in a sibling comment: We're so far down the energy-gradient of the current-default-chirality on earth, that it would take exploration of an insanely-deep valley for all mole…

But then this is also an argument against spontaneous emergence of life, right? Sicne mirror-life could just emerge on its own, instead of evolving from regular life.

Not necessarily. A pre-condition for emergence and evolution towards more complex life forms can be removed from the system by the existing complex life forms.

At the end of the day, all life is competing for energy. Spontaneous self replicators would be uncompetitive with existing biology and would never make it to more complex stages.

Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn

#210

Post by throwaway290 »

harimau777 wrote: post #10

How does a research ban even work? It seems to me that at some point someone is going to research it; at which point everyone is left flat footed by having not researched it.

If no one would publish it no one would do it.

After understanding what "mirror bacteria" is I have one word and that's "Yikes"

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