Re:A new end-the-world scenario: Photosynthetic Mirror Cells
by Palomides on Sunday December 12, 2010 @08:38PM
(#1998841)
perhaps I'm just showing my ignorance, but I don't know any examples of invasive bacteria to trust that they'd be a problem in the same way, afaik predator/prey/competition is way more complicated at the micro level.
Re:A new end-the-world scenario: Photosynthetic Mirror Cells
by stcredzero on Sunday December 12, 2010 @10:21PM
(#1999125)
but I don't know any examples of invasive bacteria to trust that they'd be a problem in the same way
Actually, that makes this even more dangerous. Normally there isn't much scope for invasive species of bacteria precisely because they've been around for a very long time and because they're everywhere. Odds are something has already evolved to eat something else that's similar. Mirror proteins break this. All of a sudden, nothing can eat these new organisms and survive for very long. It would be something unprecedented.
By having mirrored proteins and sugars, such organisms would have no predators or parasites. This condition -- having no natural predators and parasites -- has been replicated many times through the dislocation of species through human transport. Often the result is that such a species is at a huge advantage, much to the detriment of the environment. These are called "Invasive Species." (Asian Carp, anyone? Brown Snakes in Hawaii? Kudzu? Rabbits in Australia?)
Mirrored proteins and sugars would be much worse, since it would be exceedingly hard to evolve an ability to decompose these. I imagine that would happen eventually, but it would take such a long time, our environment would be in shambles and we'd be all long dead.