'Obelisks': New class of life has been found in human digestive system

Cool :) I&#x27;m a co-author on this. AMA.<p>This is now a peer-reviewed paper, published last month in Cell [<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cell.com&#x2F;cell&#x2F;fulltext&#x2F;S0092-8674(24)01091-2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cell.com&#x2F;cell&#x2F;fulltext&#x2F;S0092-8674(24)01091-2</a>].<p>Obelisks are part of a larger research program we&#x27;re developing at the University of Toronto + collaborators, see also: Virus-Viroid Hybrids paper [<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41467-023-38301-2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41467-023-38301-2</a>] and the Zeta-Elements [<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41586-021-04332-2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41586-021-04332-2</a>].<p>Computational biology is driving a revolutionary expansion of our understanding of Earth&#x27;s biodiversity. I believe Zeta-elements, Ambiviruses, and Obelisks are just the beginning. If you&#x27;re interested, our &quot;Laboratory for RNA-Based Lifeforms&quot; (University of Toronto) is hiring passionate developers&#x2F;post-docs&#x2F;graduate students [<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rnalab.ca" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rnalab.ca</a>].<p>Edit: OK going to call it for now. I&#x27;ll check in later today if there&#x27;s any outstanding questions.

&gt; researchers have stumbled across what seem to be an entire new class of virus-like objects.<p>I was confused at first. This isn&#x27;t &quot;Class&quot; in the technical sense (i.e. the level between Phylum and Order)

I am really glad we are finding new pieces of the puzzle of how our gut works and perhaps can someday understand their effect on immunity, neuro-degeneration, cancer etc. for which we now only have accidental findings.

&gt; Obelisks&#x27; genetic sequences are only around 1,000 characters<p>So they have a higher chance of being re-created by random chemical processes at mostly any point in time and place in the universe. Omniterrestrial?

The study hasn’t been peer reviewed yet, so the title is a bit too confident in its claim.

Article is from January. Has the study now been published in a journal?

But how are these life? Life generally defined by ability to reproduce and these would be piggybacking on hosts cellular machinery.<p>Do these have a known utility or is it possible some junk DNA is involved with their encoding?

Remnant of RNA world?

it&#x27;s interesting that RNA modifications are more diverse than DNA and we are just starting to develop ways to discover them. Nanopore sequencing technology from Oxford Nanopore Technology is the first technology that can sequence native RNA and their modifications. Have you explored this area?

This is a staggering and amazing finding.

Why call these obelisks their own class instead of categorizing them as another type of virus?

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