Month: September 2022

TWO WORLDS. “We now know that about half of the world’s biomass and by far the majority of its genetic biodiversity actually occur as prokaryotic microbial communities. We also know that the visible biosphere of multi-cellular eukaryote macrobiological life represents a highly derived and constrained subset of life on Earth.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

DEEPLY INTERCONNECTED. “Most importantly, we know that every individual of the multi-cellular eukaryote biosphere is completely covered and infused with prokaryotic life and that these associated microbiomes have significant effects on the function and fitness of their multi-cellular eukaryote hosts.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

IMPORTANCE OF SCALE. “In biology, as in physics, macroscale-level properties (i.e., those of classical biology) do not apply at the level of the micro-scale (i.e., biological dark matter). The newly emerging biosphere of microbial dark matter cannot be made tractable to research or understood merely by extending the concepts and methods of eukaryotic macrobiology. By analogy, that would prove about as useful as attempting to understand quantum mechanics through the application of Newtonian mechanics to miniature billiard balls.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

PARADIGM REVISION. “The unveiling of biological dark matter is allowing us to see, for the first time, the diversity of the entire biosphere and, to paraphrase Darwin, is providing a new view of life. Advancing and understanding that view will require major revisions to some of the most fundamental concepts and theories in biology.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this extensive citation of a very important article on biological dark matter and the new emerging biological paradigm. This viewpoint is far from mainstream because it takes time for new ideas to overcome resistance, to become accepted and to trickle into mainstream thinking. However, this is an extremely important start. https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

THE NEXT SECTION deals with some extraordinary findings and insights in the viral world outlined in a second very important article, and is a bookend for the previous blockbuster. Really exciting stuff. View in LinkedIn

IN ALMOST ALL LIFE. “Viruses and/or other selfish elements, such as transposons and plasmids, parasitize or enter symbiotic relationships with all cellular life forms, with the possible exception of some extremely reduced intracellular parasites.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn

UNPARALLELED DIVERSITY. “The virus world displays an enormous diversity of genome structures and sizes (viral genomes consist of single-stranded (ss) or double-stranded (ds) RNA or DNA and range in size from less than 2 kb to over 2 Mb), replication and expression mechanisms, and virion structure.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

WOW. “The overall number of distinct genes present in the genomes of selfish elements appears to substantially exceed the number of genes in all cellular life forms.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

TURBO-EVOLUTION. “Viral genes typically evolve much faster than genes of cellular organisms, and as a result, most of the genetic diversity on earth is probably concentrated in the virus world.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn