51–60 of 85 posts
An accessible and incredibly insightful read 100% on this topic is "Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life"- despite the flashy title a thorough scientific read and analysis, working through various possible arguments and teaching fundamentals along the way. My favourite book I read in the past five years or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide
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per the article, endosymbiosis has happened a bunch of times. multiple different kinds of chloroplasts, several prokaryotes, a parasite etc. this was all when eukaryotes engulfed prokaryotes, but still, how does this mean unlikely? it seems imminently likely, since.. it happened a bunch of times. seems to me like prokaryotes evolve a strategy of engulfing others for their resources, then one day engulf a prokaryote i…
The thing that only happened once on Earth and that's a prerequisite to developing complex life forms is not endosymbiosis, it's life going multi-cellular. They are not the same thing. Endosymbiosis is not identical with going multi-cellular, and it seems that all but perhaps one of the known instances of endosymbiosis didn't play any role in us going multi-cellular anyway. In fact this article makes the case that it…
> Multicellularity has evolved independently at least 25 times in eukaryotes, and also in some prokaryotes, like cyanobacteria, myxobacteria, actinomycetes, Magnetoglobus multicellularis or Methanosarcina. However, complex multicellular organisms evolved only in six eukaryotic groups: animals, symbiomycotan fungi, brown algae, red algae, green algae, and land plants. It evolved repeatedly for Chloroplastida (green algae and land plants), once for animals, once for brown algae, three times in the fungi (chytrids, ascomycetes and basidiomycetes) and perhaps several times for slime molds and red algae.
If you are curious about these things, do yourself a favor and dive into Alberts et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell . I can't recommend it enough.
If you are curious about these things, do yourself a favor and dive into Alberts et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell . I can't recommend it enough.
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> can we estimate how many planets in the galaxy have eukaryotes? Not yet. In the history of life on Earth, this has happened once. Knowing what we know about cellular biology, it’s stupidly unlikely. Beyond our present theories’ ability to quantify. By the way, I think this is one of—if not the—great filters. It’s unlikely to happen, to not promptly get smote by its primordial planet’s tantrums and to get it so righ…
> Not yet. In the history of life on Earth, this has happened once. 1) That we know about. 2) Not unlike startups vs. established business, any newly emerging "eukaryotes" have to out-compete the already-evolved incumbents, which are already quite good at harnessing energy. You're much more likely to find success in business than in an entirely new evolutionary branch, though I doubt biological "gray goo" is outright…
I doubt this. 'Not being digestible' is very far from 'being invulnerable' or even 'being able to spread quickly'. The kingdom of life has many ways to kill stuff, ways which don't care about chirality, and our typical R-sided lifeforms have all the evolutionary 'motivation' to come up with new ways just the off the competition. That's before humans get into the picture, which we have the tech to do.
There may be an accumulation of non-digestible stuff until nature reaches a balance. However, there's a very large recent accumulation of non-digestible materials called 'plastics', and while somewhat harmful, they're not a life-ending threat. Nature is already finding ways to process these materials[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_degradation_by_marine_...
An accessible and incredibly insightful read 100% on this topic is "Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life"- despite the flashy title a thorough scientific read and analysis, working through various possible arguments and teaching fundamentals along the way. My favourite book I read in the past five years or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is Nick Lane's argument - that complex cell happend only once on Earth (no convergent evolution) via this symbiotic accident and hence it's highly improbable if not almost impossible. As usual, people always seem to foreget that in this universe, what happened once, happens all the time and we are not special.
Nick Lane's book The Vital Question is a masterpiece. I reckon he's figured out the origin of life there. I hope he gets on some podcast like Lex Fridman to talk about it all, because his ideas are just waiting to explode into the public imagination.
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> Not yet. In the history of life on Earth, this has happened once. 1) That we know about. 2) Not unlike startups vs. established business, any newly emerging "eukaryotes" have to out-compete the already-evolved incumbents, which are already quite good at harnessing energy. You're much more likely to find success in business than in an entirely new evolutionary branch, though I doubt biological "gray goo" is outright…
>Reverse chirality autotrophs sound like a scary sci-fi novel plot I doubt this. 'Not being digestible' is very far from 'being invulnerable' or even 'being able to spread quickly'. The kingdom of life has many ways to kill stuff, ways which don't care about chirality, and our typical R-sided lifeforms have all the evolutionary 'motivation' to come up with new ways just the off the competition. That's before humans g…
Plastics don't self-manufacture. You might not be able to control the rate.
Just because you kill something doesn't mean you break down its carbohydrates. Reverse chiral organism skeletons could bioaccumulate and we could have a situation similar to the Carboniferous.
Someone might be able to synthesize a bacteria in the lab given enough time and effort from an organism that proliferates quickly. It doesn't have to capture all the carbon. Just out-compete a keystone species. Plankton, mycorrhizae, etc. Or attack a large percentage of the plant biomass.
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>Reverse chirality autotrophs sound like a scary sci-fi novel plot I doubt this. 'Not being digestible' is very far from 'being invulnerable' or even 'being able to spread quickly'. The kingdom of life has many ways to kill stuff, ways which don't care about chirality, and our typical R-sided lifeforms have all the evolutionary 'motivation' to come up with new ways just the off the competition. That's before humans g…
Sure, but I did say "sci-fi". And I think there are a lot of unaddressed points. Plastics don't self-manufacture. You might not be able to control the rate. Just because you kill something doesn't mean you break down its carbohydrates. Reverse chiral organism skeletons could bioaccumulate and we could have a situation similar to the Carboniferous. Someone might be able to synthesize a bacteria in the lab given enough…
The rate is limited by the process. Since no precursors exist, it must 'self-manufacture' from scratch. This has inherent limits even before introducing competition for food, poison, predators that eat you even despite them not being able to really digest, etc.
>Just because you kill something doesn't mean you break down its carbohydrates. Reverse chiral organism skeletons could bioaccumulate and we could have a situation similar to the Carboniferous.
So you don't break it down. Nature will have plenty of time to adapt. Humans will step in if needed.
>Someone might be able to synthesize a bacteria in the lab given enough time and effort from an organism that proliferates quickly.
That's an incredibly messy way - create an entire L-chiral biochemistery - to get a weapon which doesn't have a setting between 'kill everything' and 'do rather little' (IMHO, the second being much likelier). There are far worse and more directed things one can do with a lab. Even the absurd 'kill everything' goal is far more likely to be reached in different ways.