Posted on 12/29/2021 5:57:37 AM PST by Red Badger
A summary of decades of research on a rather 'out-there' idea involving viruses from space raises questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth.
It's easy to throw around words like crackpot, rogue, and maverick in describing the scientific fringe, but then papers like this one, from 2018, come along and leave us blinking owlishly, unsure of where to even begin.
A total of 33 names were listed as authors on this review, which was published by Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology back in August 2018. The journal is peer reviewed and fairly well cited. So it's not exactly small, or a niche pay-for-publish source.
Science writer Stephen Fleischfresser goes into depth on the background of two of the better known scientists involved: Edward Steele and Chandra Wickramasinghe. It's well worth a read.
For a tl;dr version, Steele is an immunologist who has a fringe reputation for his views on evolution that relies on acquiring gene changes determined by the influence of the environment rather than random mutations, in what he calls meta-Lamarckism.
Wickramasinghe, on the other hand, has had a somewhat less controversial career, recognized for empirically confirming Sir Fred Hoyle's hypothesis describing the production of complex carbon molecules on interstellar dust.
Wickramasinghe and Hoyle also happened to be responsible for another space biology thesis. Only this one is based on more than just the origins of organic chemistry.
The Hoyle Wickramasinghe (H-W) thesis of Cometary (Cosmic) Biology makes the rather simple claim that the direction of evolution has been significantly affected by biochemistry that didn't start on our planet.
In Wickramasinghe's own words, "Comets are the carriers and distributors of life in the cosmos, and life on Earth arose and developed as a result of cometary inputs."
Those inputs, Wickramasinghe argued, aren't limited to a generous sprinkling of space-baked amino acids, either.
Rather, they include viruses that insert themselves into organisms, pushing their evolution into whole new directions.
The report, titled "Cause of Cambrian Explosion – Terrestrial or Cosmic?", pulls on existing research to conclude that a rain of extra-terrestrial retroviruses played a key role in the diversification of life in our oceans roughly half a billion years ago.
"Thus retroviruses and other viruses hypothesized to be liberated in cometary debris trails both can potentially add new DNA sequences to terrestrial genomes and drive further mutagenic change within somatic and germline genomes," the authors wrote.
Let that sink in for a moment. And take a deep breath before continuing, because that was the tame part.
It was during this period that a group of mollusks known as cephalopods first stretched out their tentacles from beneath their shells, branching into a stunning array of sizes and shapes in what seemed like a remarkably short time frame.
The genetics of these organisms, which today include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, are as weird as the animals themselves, due in part to their ability to edit their DNA on the fly.
The authors of the paper make the rather audacious claim that these genetic oddities might be a sign of life from space.
Not of space viruses this time, but the arrival of whole genomes frozen in stasis before thawing out in our tepid waters.
"Thus the possibility that cryopreserved squid and/or octopus eggs, arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago should not be discounted," they wrote.
In his review of the paper, medical researcher Keith Baverstock from the University of Eastern Finland conceded that there's a lot of evidence that plausibly aligns with the H-W thesis, such as the curious timeline of the appearance of viruses.
But that's just not how science advances.
"I believe this paper justifies skepticism of the scientific value of stand alone theories of the origin of life," Baverstock argued at the time.
"The weight of plausible, but non-definitive, evidence, great though that might be, is not the point."
While the idea is as novel and exciting as it is provocative, nothing in the summary helps us better understand the history of life on Earth any better than existing conjectures, adding little of value to our model of evolution.
Still, with solid caveats in place, maybe science can cope with a generous dose of crazy every now and then.
Journal editor Denis Noble concedes that 'further research is needed', which is a bit of an understatement.
But given the developments regarding space-based organic chemistry in recent years, there's room for discussion.
"As space chemistry and biology grows in importance it is appropriate for a journal devoted to the interface between physics and biology to encourage the debates," said Noble.
"In the future, the ideas will surely become testable."
Just in case those tests confirm speculations, we recommend being well prepared for the return of our cephalopod overlords. Who knows when they'll want those eggs back?
This research was published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.
A version of this article was first published in August 2018.
Happy Thorsday! It’s 24 fs here and forecast to be mid-40s later. We’ll wait until after lunch to go over to the science team leader’s house and identify trees.
Those doorknobs are to die for! The blue one, especially!
But this is a two-paned screen/storm door, with the screen on the bottom and an adjustable window that is supposed to be on the inside. It’s currently on the outside because it’s a left-hand door. It would fit the apartment next door, but not this one because they face each other at an angle. A wide “V” with about 5” of wall that separates them. The manager, being new and being young, didn’t realize she was supposed to order a right-hand door.
The maintenance man is young as well and was trying to get the door to fit until I told him to give up. It’s not going to work, no matter what he does to it. Not his fault. He was trying to correct someone else’s mistake but this one isn’t correctable.
Yep, them, Spock and Cthulhu...........................
I wish my grammar school teachers would have been tolerating enough to allow me to stay standing after a misspelling in spelling bee drills but I would be forced to sit down, I’d get fidgety, and then be forced to stand in the corner. I was a happy camper. I was standing
What a sweet little floof!
Good morning.
I hope you slept well.
I was awake longer than I should have been, but I still woke up 15 minutes after the alarm should have gone off.
Today is National Chocolate Day as well as Holocaust Remembrance Day. The two should not coincide.
FS may or may not come over today and put some things together. It depends on his work load. I won’t know for another hour or two. Or maybe several.
Last night, they were filling out their applications for European driver’s licenses, and he sent me a text asking where he was born. Well, he was born at Gt Lakes, NTC, but it’s been decommissioned so he was born at the nearby army base. How does that work, I wonder? :o] Anyway, it’s probably the only contact I’ll have with them until Saturday.
The squirrels are a chatty bunch, and if one of them saw the murder of a gang member, you can bet the entire gang and their cousin’s brother’s uncle’s dad knows all about it. They’ll steer clear for a while, and then they’ll force a young one into a rite of passage to bell the cat. I love a good story!
And hooray for the Duke de Marmelade! Although squirrels are like crows in intelligence, which is why they’re so successful. They bury up to 10,000 nuts/acorns and can remember where they all are. If they don’t retrieve them, it’s because they don’t want to and not because they’ve forgotten. They always find the oldest ones first when the need arises.
Good Friday Eve morning.
I haven’t done my Wordle today. Maybe I should. My brain needs the stimulation. ;o]
Current read of outdoor non_digital thermometer is 10°F, no wind to speak of, so there’s that.
A few years back there was feral Siamese, unusual, that used the storm drain line to peer out from the curb cuts, his private pill box system...always odd to see him peering out looking for lunch safe from Bluejays.
Huh. Took me five again. *sheesh*
It’s 31° here, with a high of 43° expected. It’s overcast for now, so it’s possible that it will just stay cold.
Siamese are clever and stealthy. This one obviously figured out how to survive in an area where most humans would think impossible. Blue jays are opportunistic thieves. They also are very territorial. The cat was smart to use the pill boxes to avoid being bombarded.
Good morning again. I’m going to take a shower, and then probably go to Walmart. We’re out of apples and bananas again, and I expect the bros will want supper at some point.
Tom the Son is not, in fact, dead, as I had begun to expect from the lack of response to my texts. I told him to come this afternoon and take Vlad to practice backing and turning.
I listened to an uplifting talk, then made my bed and figured while I was in there, I should probably vacuum, which I did.
Now, I have to sit for a bit before the next project, which is sorting the pills for the next week. Maybe I’ll get another box unpacked today. I’ll see how I feel after getting the pills sorted. One more box is one step closer to being able to wash the walls at the far end of the room!
Good luck to Tom and Vlad on the Driving Adventures.
Maybe I can snag my FS and have him drop off this package at the post office. I’ll text him and ask.
Good Morning!
Will get caught up on pings soon.
Today’s:
Wordle 222 4/6
⬛⬛🟨🟨🟩
⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Del Rio is a lot further south at around 29.3° N.
Much warmer down there usually.
Yesterday's was an odd one, first 3 rows eliminated a lot of letters and gave me two letters in use. The guess was made based on that data (and bearing in mind that it is a British game)...
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas.
I've not the British-ness of the source impact the choice of words yet. There was one day the word was "shire", but because of the popularity of the LOTR here I didn't consider that a particularly British word.
The Trivial Pursuit game on Pat’s Nintendo is British. It asks questions about cricket, football teams, and the English version of Monopoly.
Yesterday’s was pretty rugged for me, and today’s almost as bad. I’ll get the hang of it as I do more puzzles. Right now, the brain effort is almost painful.
I’m not a quitter, though, so I’ll keep plugging along until I’m good at it! I’m just SO out of practice!
That winter was especially cold, with night-time temps in the 20s. I remember it because there were some carolers on Christmas Eve that were determined to stay out in the cold, even though they weren’t dressed for it, and sing to me. So I gave them some warm homemade pumpkin pie and sent them on their way. They were singing to everyone who had a porchlight on, I think! It was an amazing Christmas gift.
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