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RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

cnn.com

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Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#61

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

cft wrote: post #56
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my understanding that the RNA world hypothesis is pretty much widely accepted these days anyway. The open question is more how you get to the RNA world in the first place. The RNA hypothesis as such is more an hypothesis of what preceded life based on DNA and protein, and less so a theory of the origin of life from non-life per se. The two main camps today seem to be "metabolism first" with people like Nick Lane…

Can you link to this research? Perhaps an overview link would make a good OP for Hacker News.

He provides download links to most his papers on his website:

https://nick-lane.net/publications/

As for a good introduction to what his(and the many other people working in his lab) research is getting at, I really recommend the podcast episode he did on Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#62

Post by mr_mitm »

dsr_ wrote: post #58
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does: "Organic: relating to or derived from living matter"

This is the difference between standard usage and jargon. Chemists consider any covalent compound involving carbon that isn't only carbon to be "organic". Normal usage is what you wrote. Alternative but widespread usage is "agricultural products made without synthesized fertilizers and pesticides". Oh, and business jargon uses organic to mean "natural market growth or internally developed capabilities", as opposed to…

It's like astronomer talking about metals. By which they mean everything that's not hydrogen or helium.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#63

Post by CrispCas13 »

f6v wrote: post #20
JPLeRouzic wrote: post #6

They didn't detect RNA which would be extraordinary. What they detected is Uracil, one of the molecules that is found in RNA. They didn't found any other nucleotides. " Other DNA/RNA nucleobases were not positively identified in both the A0106 and C0107 samples. This does not necessarily exclude a possibility that those nucleobases are present in the Ryugu samples, but just they may be below the detection limit under…

> For having RNA you need a molecule composed of roughly 200 nucleotides. miRNA are order of magnitude smaller.

That's after DICER/Drosha processes the pre-miRNA/pri-miRNA transcripts. The pre-miRNA/pri-miRNAs transcripts can be a magnitude equal to or greater than 200 nts.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#64

Post by eggy »

I read Hoyle and Wikiramasingh's books back in the late 70s and 80s. Fun reads and thought-provoking no matter what side you fall on the Panspermia argument. To those who downplay it as not really being RNA, this is one mission to a near-Earth asteroid. What are the odds you would even find a nucleobase? Amazing work and the contamination argument is always presented in light of any such discoveries. There was also the dismissal of fossil-like impressions in meteorites cut open as just looking like a known life form. I WANT TO BELIEVE ;)

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#65

Post by coldtea »

craftsman wrote: post #42
coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You better alert the scientists that they missed something, then! That's some serious business, they must be alerted to their failings immediately! Yes, unimaginable that scientists could have made a mistake that a layman could spot, or just said something to create good PR to their mission, even when it's inaccurate. They also never unwittingly or intentionally BS in their research papers, right? And only a collea…

I think what the other poster is trying to say is something like the following: There was a team / teams who planned the mission, designed and built the spacecraft and its systems & instruments, designed and performed tests on the samples, analyzed the data, and published a paper with some claims. The paper outlines their methods, test results, data, and conclusions. Now, is it okay to question anything in the paper?…

My claim wasn't that "the team(s) involved did not consider that contamination could occur before or after the sample was obtained and analyzed".

I merely gave a trivial (even exhaustive!) enumeration of possible contamination cases that could still have happened (regardless of whether they are targeted against in their protocols), not some novel avenue for contamination that I claim to be "smarter than the scientists" to come up with.

Of course they knew of those contamination possibilities. I didn't say anything about them having missed such basic contamination cases.

What I did (and am) suggesting is that they probably are too confident in their protocols having been executed correctly and being 100% tight with no possibility of error. And that that those avenues of contamination are still a real possibility (protocols to prevent them be damned).

Now, this might not be the case. This might indeed be space travelling RNA-combound and B3 vitamin.

But I'd say that the probability of contamination being the case and someone (on HN or wherever) calling it correctly, is equal to the probability of the samples being contaminated. Which is not that small.

Spotting some novel contamination route they haven't thought off would indeed be very rare and a major feat. But merely been less confident (that they are) in their thoroughness and in their preclusion of contamination, is much easier to claim and be correct while doing so.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#66

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

craftsman wrote: post #47
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read my comment as implying all science is ruled out due to one example, that's very much a you problem. I said or implied no such thing. I also didn't take a stance on this research. I've yet to read the paper, and I don't read "science journalism" like TFA. But it's not like the findings are earth shattering given previous research. Therefore I lean towards optimism. I am simply saying that scepticism is war…

If your post was simply to say, "This paper could have flaws and its conclusions could be incorrect," then yes, almost all of us will agree with you. I'm not sure it's big news, however. I would guess most of us understand that scientific findings are contingent on future experiments and results. If your post was to point out a specific flaw, e.g., that the sample could have been pre- or post-contaminated, then it fa…

My post was clearly not pointing out flaws in this specific research. Not sure how you get that impression.

I first replied to a comment implying that just because research is widely publicised it should be accepted at face value, with a counterexample. That was all.

Then someone replied to that with the absurd implication I was somehow trying to denounce all of science based on that one example. I corrected them.

The only thing I said about this specific research was the following:

>>But it's not like the findings are earth shattering given previous research. Therefore I lean towards optimism.

If you inferred any other comment on the research than that, the source of that is your imagination, not anything I wrote.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#67

Post by prewett »

dsr_ wrote: post #58
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does: "Organic: relating to or derived from living matter"

This is the difference between standard usage and jargon. Chemists consider any covalent compound involving carbon that isn't only carbon to be "organic". Normal usage is what you wrote. Alternative but widespread usage is "agricultural products made without synthesized fertilizers and pesticides". Oh, and business jargon uses organic to mean "natural market growth or internally developed capabilities", as opposed to…

I've taken to using "organic-branded" for the agricultural products, since "organic" is essentially an FDA brand, with regulations for usage of the branding. Its also my personal rebellion against "organic" having a functional meaning of "magicalhealthygoodness" in some circles.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#68

Post by eggy »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #34
coldtea wrote: post #11

> “Since the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected two samples directly from asteroid Ryugu and delivered them to Earth in sealed capsules, contamination can be ruled out.” I seriously doubt that it could be "ruled out" just like that. For one, the spacecraft (or the empty capsules) could have been pre-contaminated before their launch. Second, the capsules could have been contaminated after arrival even if they were "sealed…

While we are probably really good programmers, surprisingly enough these “scientists” seem to know how to do their job without our guidance: https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.118...

Well played. I do find HN to be full of "expert" commentators on any subject matter even if they aren't ;) Remember David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day) figured out how to defeat the alien invaders by uploading a virus to the alien ship. He used MacOS 8! Wasn't it a modem parity issue (8N1) or some other such nonsense for a space-traveling, gravity-defying spaceship?

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#69

Post by coldtea »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #34
coldtea wrote: post #11

> “Since the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected two samples directly from asteroid Ryugu and delivered them to Earth in sealed capsules, contamination can be ruled out.” I seriously doubt that it could be "ruled out" just like that. For one, the spacecraft (or the empty capsules) could have been pre-contaminated before their launch. Second, the capsules could have been contaminated after arrival even if they were "sealed…

While we are probably really good programmers, surprisingly enough these “scientists” seem to know how to do their job without our guidance: https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.118...

They can also always be too confident in having done their job perfectly - and they can be that with or without our guidance.

Re: RNA compound and vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid

#70

Post by coldtea »

aa-jv wrote: post #24
coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You better alert the scientists that they missed something, then! That's some serious business, they must be alerted to their failings immediately! Yes, unimaginable that scientists could have made a mistake that a layman could spot, or just said something to create good PR to their mission, even when it's inaccurate. They also never unwittingly or intentionally BS in their research papers, right? And only a collea…

[flagged]

I know better than scientists have time and again made mistakes, and claimed something with certainty, even though it was wrong, despite, you know "actually working with the data and not just reading about it on the Internet".

I also know that scientists have a bias to show impressive results, and that even NASA among others, in a similar case was all too fast to jump to conclusions and make a whole show about their 'findings' and annoucements to the press, and they still got it comically wrong, despite "actually working with the data and not just reading about it on the Internet.".

Finally, I know that "we found RNA building blocks and B3" on a meteorite is less likely that contamination, so the story seems fishy and premature.

Sorry that somebody even doubted than an announcement or a paper can ever be likely wrong without being on the team who wrote it.

Now how about some apologies for your tone?

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