Scientists: Virus May Give Link to Life

Science - AP ^ | 2004-05-12

[Junior]

BILLINGS, Mont. - Scientists at Montana State University in Bozeman say they have discovered a heat-loving, acid-dwelling virus that could help provide a link to ancient life on Earth.

The virus found in Yellowstone National Park could help to understand a common ancestor that scientists believe was present before life split into forms such as bacteria, heat-loving organisms and the building blocks that led to plants and animals, researchers said.

"It's a clue that helps you say, `Yeah, there probably was a common ancestor at some point or sets of ancestors,'" said George Rice, one of the MSU scientists who participated in the study. "It's food for thought."

The scientists' discovery was published in the May 3 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites).

Rice began hunting for heat-loving "thermophilic" viruses in Yellowstone five years ago. In 2001, he and others found several apparently unique viruses associated with an organism living near Midway Geyser Basin where temperatures ranged from 158 to 197 degrees Fahrenheit.

"It was basically something living in boiling acid," Rice said.

Although several new viruses were discovered, one in particular caught their eye.

After characterizing the structure and genome of the virus, they found that its protein shell was similar to a bacterial virus and an animal virus. The similarity suggests to the scientists that the three viruses may share a common ancestor that predates the branching off of life forms more than 3 billion years ago.

"This is something that was predicted but hadn't been shown before," Rice said.

For a long time, scientists classified all life forms as plant or animal. That classification system expanded as more life forms were discovered. Eventually, biologists divided life into five kingdoms — plants, animals, bacteria, fungi and protists.

A more recent approach divides life into three domains: bacteria, eukarya — which includes plants, fungi, animals and others — and archaea, which means ancient.

Archaea, similar to bacteria, is likely the least understood of the domains, according to the paper's authors. Archaea may have been among the first forms of life on Earth. Able to thrive in the hot, gaseous and volcanic terrain of early Earth, they could also survive in the very inhospitable geothermal features of the Yellowstone of today.

Now that scientists know the Yellowstone virus's ancient structure seems to span all three domains of life, scientists plan additional studies on its genes to figure out what they tell the virus to do.

"Anywhere there's life, we expect viruses," Young said. "They are the major source of biological material on this planet."

Researchers said the virus and others found at Yellowstone will give researchers a hand in the search for life on other planets, including Mars.

"These bugs are living and doing business in a harsh environment," Rice said. "This may be clues about what to look for."

[Junior]

The article doesn't say these virii are the originals, only that their existence might help in understanding early life on Earth. It's kind of like those critters living around the black smokers under the Atlantic; they're not the earliest life on Earth, but they give clues as to where life might have started.

[Nataku X]

Yes. Go ahead and cite peer-reviewed articles without original research/data.

[Sloth]

Boiling Acid Virus would be a great name for a band.

[RightWhale]

There's more data coming in every day than can be processed in a year and a lot of it is available to anyopne on the Internet in raw form. We ought to be up to our reading glasses in scientific articles. But we're not. Must be something more to the story.

[FITZ]

they found that its protein shell was similar to a bacterial virus and an animal virus.

Don't viruses need a plant or animal host in which to replicate? Since viruses are just little packages of DNA or RNA and require a living host to infest and use that host as a source for amino acids --- because viruses have no cytoplasm or way to get amino acids on their own --- and this virus shows similarity to bacterial and animal viruses --- how can a virus come before other forms of life?

[malakhi]

That's what I thought at first, too. But they seemed to be asserting something further when they said:

After characterizing the structure and genome of the virus, they found that its protein shell was similar to a bacterial virus and an animal virus. The similarity suggests to the scientists that the three viruses may share a common ancestor that predates the branching off of life forms more than 3 billion years ago...

Now that scientists know the Yellowstone virus's ancient structure seems to span all three domains of life...

Aren't they saying that the interesting thing about the virus is that it exhibits features predating the branching off of life forms?

[Junior]

My wife is currently working on her Master's in psychology. Part of her course work is preparing work for peer review. Raw data is useless until statistical methods are applied to it (to make sure, among other things, that the data are not simply statistical anomolies).

[FITZ]

I didn't see where it said the viruses somehow predate other life forms --- and no where does it explain how a virus can do that. "In 2001, he and others found several apparently unique viruses associated with an organism living" This virus is associated with living organism. Aren't all viruses?

[Junior]

True. It might be that the virii in question might have found their way to Yellowstone in the same manner that fish find their way to land-locked lakes; Yellowstone is simply a remnant of a larger virii-hospitable region. I don't know. All we've got to work with is an article written by a layman based on interviews with the researchers. I would have asked the researchers how the virii got there in the first place; this writer didn't think of that.

I wonder if the paper is available on the internet?

[RightWhale]

Raw data is useless

Raw data is a resource. Very valuable. It's up to the researcher to make something out of it, make a contribution to knowledge. That's what gets published: contributions to knowledge. Data itself does not get published in peer-reviewed journals.

[VadeRetro]

I didn't see where it said the viruses somehow predate other life forms --- and no where does it explain how a virus can do that.

One idea about where viruses come from is that they are remnants of "RNA-world." The way they live in cellular cytoplasm now, they used to live in "the soup." (Another idea is that viruses in some way "degenerated" from cellular life.)

[Junior]

Exactly. However, it takes time to parse the data, hence the relative scarcity* of scientific papers.

*Note the term "relative." There are thousands of papers published every year of all manner of subjects scientific.

[biblewonk]

One idea about where viruses come from is that they are remnants of "RNA-world." The way they live in cellular cytoplasm now, they used to live in "the soup." (Another idea is that viruses in some way "degenerated" from cellular life.)

And maybe the soup is in a giant bowl on the back of a turtle. I'm going to go meditate on the giant turtle.

[malakhi]

All we've got to work with is an article written by a layman based on interviews with the researchers.

Yep, so some things aren't very clear. Who knows? The virus could have a "spore" form and lay dormant indefinitely until it finds itself in a suitable environment.

[RightWhale]

You could have a single person publish three papers in one year and comletely overturn physics and never publish again. Could happen. Could be another publish a paper a month for 40 years and not have a fundamental effect, and yet be well thought of and used as reference countless times. We like to reference Science articles here, and a lot of them are speculative and not publishable in the better journals. There is the matter of the degree of quality of the paper, not all are the same level. The one at the head of this thread does not appear to be of the highest quality, but it still might be useful in an Ann Landers "Advice to Budding Scientists" kind of way.

[Nataku X]

I feel like this is heading into a semantics debate on data versus research versus writing. But nonetheless it is impossible to sit down and pontificate out a 10-page scientific paper like a English 101 composition, because you have to have original work. The ORIGINAL research, work, and/or data IS the paper. The writing skills do not factor in much.

Indeed in my speciality, neural networks, the only data may be a bunch of image files, or a bunch of movie sequences--the "original" work is a statistical analysis... BUT the neural network itself is a statistical analysis that takes hundreds of hours to refine and complete. It doesn't cost much effort to go to the Kodak database and pick out the "raw data" (a database of 3000 or so pictures). But, refining it through statistical methods into something acceptable for peer publication is no trivial undertaking. The writing is a tiny, tiny fraction of what goes into an article.

I presume that your wife spent much time applying these statistical methods to her peer publications. Best of wishes to her.

[Nataku X]

This article is a layman's article, written for a general audience, and it was never intended to be a peer-reviewed article.

[Nataku X]

And I'll bail out before the inevitable semantics debate.

[FITZ]

The way they live in cellular cytoplasm now, they used to live in "the soup." (Another idea is that viruses in some way "degenerated" from cellular life.)

I can believe the latter part --- but to believe the first part, I'd have to know what happened to "the soup", and the other problem is that viruses are usually very specific to their host --- no matter how much your dog sneezes on you, you cannot catch the same cold they have in most cases.

[RightWhale]

Yes, and appropriate for debate here on FR and at dinnertables, but probably not useful in the advance of science nor in helping the layperson guess what science is up to right now. It might keep the C/E debate stoked and so keep several minds active against the day they would be needed for somethng important.