from Hacker News

'Obelisks', a new class of life living inside humans

by Ziggy_Zaggy on 2/2/25, 1:20 AM with 25 comments

• by kens on 2/2/25, 4:44 AM

  Although the title says "just discovered", obelisks were discovered a year ago. Obelisks are RNA elements inside bacteria inside humans. Here are some links for more information:

  The publication in Cell: https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)01091-2

  The preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.20.576352v1

  An article about obelisks in Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/it-s-insane-new-viru...

  An article in Derek Lowe's popular "In the Pipeline": https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/what-s-obelisk-any...

• by ninalanyon on 2/2/25, 11:24 AM

  The article makes it sound as though this is something only humans have. Which struck me as very odd.

  But the paper in Cell says:

  "• Found globally in diverse niches, obelisks also occur in human stool and oral microbiomes"

  https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)01091-2

  Much more reasonable.

• by yawnxyz on 2/2/25, 3:19 AM

  This was a good thread on Obelisks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42547489

• by enkid on 2/2/25, 11:49 AM

  If viruses usually aren't considered alive, why would obelisk? I'm also curious how we know these are independent structures versus a by product of our own or our resident bacteria's cellular function. The mRNA seems unrelated to our own, but perhaps there's an unknown process that either generates new extracellular mRNA to create these protiens referenced in the article. Alternatively, could these be mRNA strands that escaped the cellular destruction process?

• by pama on 2/2/25, 2:55 AM

  https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.20.576352v1

• by thebeardisred on 2/2/25, 7:21 PM

  Does anyone else find it odd that we're getting virus news from the former android news aggregator "Boy Genius Report"?

• by jmpman on 2/2/25, 2:11 AM

  Midi-chlorians?

• by amanzi on 2/2/25, 2:41 AM

  I had no idea the Boy Genius Report website was still around!

• by thrill on 2/2/25, 2:34 AM

  Give yourself a fighting chance - eat more yoghurt.

• by Ziggy_Zaggy on 2/2/25, 1:20 AM

  "...new life forms are called Obelisks..."

• by fuzzfactor on 2/2/25, 3:28 AM

  A never-before-seen class?

  Seems like experts would need to consider any "inheritance" issues that might have been unexpected . . .

• by travisgriggs on 2/2/25, 2:59 AM

  Obelisks eh? I wish this article had more on the dimensions of these little critters. Was hoping to read that they’re of 1:4:9 proportions, and thus the given name was a sort of hat tip…

  Cue Zarathustra