Scientists declare octopi life from another world

[hecep]

@FGD135

I’d say it’s time for them to do the apology dance.

At the same time we could do the Superior Dance ala Church Lady.

[aluchko]

@Grahamers20021

I agree it’s the thrust of what you say, but since we don’t have any other life with which to compare that of Earth’s, you can say that we should expect completely different amino acids and whatnot. It could well be that life is prevalent AND the only way it works is with these amino acids and whatnot. We simply do not know, so we can’t say which is more likely or even what he odds are.

I can’t speak to the amino acids but certainly the DNA is the giveaway. There’s enough randomness in DNA that the only way for huge sections to be shared is common ancestry.

[ptrourke]

English: Octopuses
Latin: Octopodes
Never: Octopi

[FGD135]

[R.Birks]

There’s a rare few journals that publish the occasional open access piece. Usually, (like in this case,) it’s reserved for review pieces and rebuttals, rather than novel data.

[57Lh7m5gq2f04iR]

Where did you find the paper? I’d like to read it, but I’ve failed to find it because they didn’t link to it, name it, or anyone who worked on it in the article, and I seem to regard Express as “fairly unreliable.”

[anon61221983]

Yes, I’m aware. It’s true across academic fields, of course.

[R.Birks]

Of course. I forgot academia is an area you know well.

[anon61221983]

Not all of academia of course, just my dusty, provincial corner of it!

[derioderio]

If the wording seems to sound like intelligent design, it’s because it about as equally evidence-based.

“This is weird and I can’t explain it, therefore aliens” seems about as rigorous as “This is weird and I can’t explain it, therefore God.”

[redesigned]

The genome of the Octopus shows a staggering level of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes more than is present in Homo sapiens.

so what? this is meaningless. genetic complexity doesn’t correlate like they indicate. many species have far more protein-coding genes than humans. plants. shrimp. etc.

The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus to the common Cuttlefish to Squid to the common are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form

That’s how evolution works. You don’t find any evolutionary breakthrough prior to it first happening. Sometimes certain changes occur many times independently but more typically it happens exactly like this, which they should know if they did any science.

One plausible explanation, in our view, is that the new genes are likely new extraterrestrial imports to Earth - most plausibly as an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs

bullshit. these people aren’t real scientists are they? is this a hoax? or a flat-earth “truth turd”?
we know octopus evolved on earth because they share the same genetics pieces as everything else on earth in the same genetic tree up until they diverged. we know they evolved on earth because of fossil records. we know they evolved on earth because all life on earth we’ve encountered so far has no matter how strange or fantastic it might seem.

it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large.

yeah, definitely not scientists. no it is not plausible, not even remotely.

@hecep

I think the article says more about the scientists involved and the two publications. Perhaps Infowars vetted the paper.

yep. alternative fact based science.

yep to what @Andrew_Glasgow says above.

@aluchko

I can’t speak to the amino acids but certainly the DNA is the giveaway. There’s enough randomness in DNA that the only way for huge sections to be shared is common ancestry.

yep.

[incarnedine_v]

most things do:

List of organisms by chromosome count

like the Atlas blue Butterfly, which is just a bag of chromosomes with wings.

[anothernewbbaccount]

And if it had been the Mail it would have been ‘Octopuses cure/cause* cancer’ (*delete as applicable)

[Andrew_Glasgow]

@Grahamers20021

I agree it’s the thrust of what you say, but since we don’t have any other life with which to compare that of Earth’s, you can say that we should expect completely different amino acids and whatnot. It could well be that life is prevalent AND the only way it works is with these amino acids and whatnot. We simply do not know, so we can’t say which is more likely or even what he odds are.

I could buy alien life having the same 20 amino acids as us, conceivably. The same 20 amino acids AND the exact same three-base codons encoding them AND the same mechanism (aminoacyl-tRNA delivering the amino acids to a ribosome and utilizing the same enzymes as other earthly life to join it with other amino acids according to an mRNA strand transcribed from DNA using the same enzymes as other earthly life)? Nuh-uh. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

[Exonauts]

Obligatory: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/octopus-dna-comes-from-space/

[R.Birks]

I would have trouble believing even just the amino acid bit, that knowing that those are just the 20 earth life incorporate into our regular proteins. There are many other amino acids used by Eukaryotes in extra-ribosomal polypeptides, though as far as I know they all use the same 20 for the standard ribosomal proteins.

[Andrew_Glasgow]

@57Lh7m5gq2f04iR

Where did you find the paper? I’d like to read it, but I’ve failed to find it because they didn’t link to it, name it, or anyone who worked on it in the article, and I seem to regard Express as “fairly unreliable.”

The linked article does name the paper.

Here’s a link.

[Andrew_Glasgow]

@R.Birks

I would have trouble believing even just the amino acid bit, that knowing that those are just the 20 earth life incorporate into our regular proteins. There are many other amino acids used by Eukaryotes in extra-ribosomal polypeptides, though as far as I know they all use the same 20 for the standard ribosomal proteins.

What I’m saying is, if we found a putative alien life form and it had the same 20 amino acids but had a completely different (though probably similar in an analogous way) mechanism for producing polypeptides, it would still be plausible that it was from an alien tree of life.

[R.Birks]

Gotcha. And I’d have to agree, that’s an entirely plausible explanation.

[strokeybeard]

@anon73430903

The Express is not a reliable news source, it’s a rival of the Daily Mail with a similar editorial policy. The “science” reporting is also of a similar low quality to the Mail’s.

Does the article say if octopodes cause or cure cancer?

Who cares! I want to know how they’re involved in Diana’s death?!