Aug 3, 2025 07:43 PM
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...ide-humans
INTRO: We’re not sure if it’s exciting or not that scientists just discovered new ‘lifeforms’ inside of our bodies. Tiny bits of RNA, smaller than a virus, colonize bacteria inside our mouths and guts and have the power to transfer information that can be read by a cell.
Dubbed ‘wildly weird’ by the team of Stanford scientists writing about the find in Nature, the discovery now has a name: obelisks. And we ... don’t really know their end goal.
Named obelisks because of their rod-shaped structures, they are even smaller than viruses, but they can still transmit instructions to cells. What they’re saying, however, we just don’t know.
The microscopic entities, according to an explanation written in The Conversation by University of Bath microbial evolution professor Ed Feil, are “circular bits of genetic material that contain one or two genes and self-organize into a rod-like shape.”
They are, potentially, itsy-bitsy ‘lifeforms.’ The preprint paper from Stanford calls them “viroid-like”—a viroid is one step down from a virus. While a virus needs a host to allow it to replicate, that hasn’t slowed them down. We’ve lost count of just how many viruses this world has to offer because they are so plentiful... (MORE - details)
INTRO: We’re not sure if it’s exciting or not that scientists just discovered new ‘lifeforms’ inside of our bodies. Tiny bits of RNA, smaller than a virus, colonize bacteria inside our mouths and guts and have the power to transfer information that can be read by a cell.
Dubbed ‘wildly weird’ by the team of Stanford scientists writing about the find in Nature, the discovery now has a name: obelisks. And we ... don’t really know their end goal.
Named obelisks because of their rod-shaped structures, they are even smaller than viruses, but they can still transmit instructions to cells. What they’re saying, however, we just don’t know.
The microscopic entities, according to an explanation written in The Conversation by University of Bath microbial evolution professor Ed Feil, are “circular bits of genetic material that contain one or two genes and self-organize into a rod-like shape.”
They are, potentially, itsy-bitsy ‘lifeforms.’ The preprint paper from Stanford calls them “viroid-like”—a viroid is one step down from a virus. While a virus needs a host to allow it to replicate, that hasn’t slowed them down. We’ve lost count of just how many viruses this world has to offer because they are so plentiful... (MORE - details)