Re:This Biology Book Blew Me Away
by danieltillett on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:33AM
(#11728437)
And the question that fascinates me is "where are these primitive forms"? Even if the original forms evolved since, why can't we find at least some "improved" forms that use these more primitive principles than the ones we're accustomed to?
This is a really good question. It is possible that some of these primitive lifeforms still exist (deep underground would be my best guess) but for technical reasons we can’t easily find them.
We have two basic ways of find living microorganisms: 1. We can either grow them in culture, or 2. We can look for genetic markers that can be amplified using techniques like PCR. If these primitive micro-organisms grow slowly (say divide once a year) then we will never find them in culture (we already know the microorganisms that live deep underground grow at this sort of speed). The genetic marker approach requires that the primitive organism have the same genes as all modern organisms (ribosomes normally). If they don’t have these genes then we won’t find them using our current approaches - they could be there and we just miss them.
If I was Bill Gates rich I would spend some of my money sponsoring deep earth microbiologists to look for cells that appear to be maintaining an energy gradient, but which don’t have ribosomes.
This is a really good question. It is possible that some of these primitive lifeforms still exist (deep underground would be my best guess) but for technical reasons we can’t easily find them.
We have two basic ways of find living microorganisms: 1. We can either grow them in culture, or 2. We can look for genetic markers that can be amplified using techniques like PCR. If these primitive micro-organisms grow slowly (say divide once a year) then we will never find them in culture (we already know the microorganisms that live deep underground grow at this sort of speed). The genetic marker approach requires that the primitive organism have the same genes as all modern organisms (ribosomes normally). If they don’t have these genes then we won’t find them using our current approaches - they could be there and we just miss them.
If I was Bill Gates rich I would spend some of my money sponsoring deep earth microbiologists to look for cells that appear to be maintaining an energy gradient, but which don’t have ribosomes.