Exploring the origin of interstellar species: multiple planetary incubators form the “tree of life”

As like as two peas,

, Sina Technology News, August 18th, according to foreign media reports, a molecule in the universe from ancient times has reacted with other molecules, making another molecule similar to the universe born in Beijing. After that, the new molecule continued to react with other molecules, and then produced a molecule that was exactly the same as before. Molecules react through infinite cycles, eventually causing molecular motion throughout the galaxy. < / P > < p > this basic attribute that we call life phenomenon exists on the earth, which is the spreading narration of molecular algorithm information or future evolution process. In fact, you can call this process the core essence of life, or even the underlying cause of life’s existence. In our case, it happens to be represented by complex organic molecular structure. The exact history of these self-propagating molecular stories on earth is very difficult to read, because we can only see successful molecular evolution. We don’t have a chance to witness the experiments that have failed in the evolution of life over the past four billion years. We have also missed a lot of nearly successful but failed life evolution processes, and the rich information in these processes has now been lost. < / P > < p > but we did have the honor to witness the mechanism of carrying out these successful experiments, and maybe we were lucky enough to promote the success rate of life evolution. One of the key mechanisms involves gene exchange. For example, sexual reproduction, which we are most familiar with, involves gene mixing and matching. For a species, the use of functional gene mutation to mix genes into different genomes is equivalent to their own “search engine”, which can be called an unparalleled way to strengthen their own evolutionary experiments. However, there are considerable costs, for example, the reproductive capacity of sexual reproduction will be greatly reduced compared with asexual reproduction which only needs continuous self replication. Because their own genes are only 50% of the chance of random transmission, the genetic competition between breeding individuals like human parents is fierce. Although sexual reproduction can combine mutations that enhance adaptability, they also combine mutations that reduce adaptability. This is not good news for offspring and parents, although harmful mutations disappear quickly, sexual reproduction is generally good for the species as a whole. < / P > < p > but it is clear that the benefits of sexual reproduction often outweigh the costs, especially when the number is small and the environment changes rapidly. Most famously, sexual reproduction seems to offer a solution to the challenge of the so-called “Red Queen hypothesis.”. In the Red Queen hypothesis, species must evolve as fast as possible in order to cope with the competition between parasites and pathogens. Although sexual reproduction exists in 99.9% of the complex cellular life of the earth, it is only one way for species to activate and mix their genomic materials. Prokaryotes such as bacteria and archaea carry out a large number of horizontal gene transfer, which basically means that they exchange genetic codes between asexual individuals. This can be achieved by releasing gene fragments into the environment (transformation) to ingest other cells, or by inserting exogenous gene “codes” into the virus, and sometimes even by bridging cells in close proximity. Horizontal gene exchange does not seem to be limited to prokaryotes, and even primates have shown that genes may be introduced through some form of lateral (non reproductive) transfer. < / P > < p > in other words, we are actually living in a multi-level melee of gene mixing and exchange. The key is that these mechanisms have persisted for billions of years, telling us that they are all important, and that in terms of broad Darwinian theory, these mechanisms are successful. In other words, no matter what life is made of, it is conceivable that the schemes represented by these gene exchange mechanisms may appear in any lasting life system in the universe. This fact raises some interesting possibilities about what we might find outside the earth. Although these are all insightful conjectures, they still depend on the characteristics of life itself. < / P > < p > first of all, if the process of mixing and disseminating heritable information is universal, then the implementation of these processes will depend heavily on the environment and substrate in which they operate. In this sense, although the life of the earth has gone through a multi-dimensional process in the past several billion years, it may still be limited by the details of planetary composition and changes, such as chemical environment and asteroid impact. Secondly, other planetary life systems may last longer, far more than 4 billion years of the earth, and their life lineages can last to the distant future, potentially The earth has left a huge space for the development of information transmission and species reproduction. < / P > < p > in recent years, scientists have been debating how asteroid impacts promote the exchange of material between planets like earth and Mars, and allow organisms to travel back and forth between the earth and Mars. Some argue that young Mars is actually more likely to be a life incubator than a young earth, which took billions of years to “seed” life elements into the world through asteroid collisions. Chemist Lee Cronin pointed out that the Abiochemistry between the earth and Mars will lead to an exponential increase in chemical complexity, which will eventually lead to the emergence of life. < / P > < p > if we extrapolate these ideas to more intensive extragalactic planetary systems, such as trappist-1, which has seven planets, the matter exchange among the planets in this system may be more frequent, and there are still horizontal gene transfer between some celestial bodies in the Milky way, which occurs within tens of millions of kilometers, or the entire ecosystem. Evolution can drive life to be more suitable for this kind of gene transfer, because it gives a greater degree of overall adaptability. Finally, alien biologists in the field may pay attention to the “tree of life” composed of multiple planetary incubators. Professional genome mapping agencies will reveal who their interstellar ancestors are? < / P > < p > in a larger space, it is very interesting to imagine life exchanging genetic information across the galaxy. In fact, the old view of biogenesis holds that there is a large-scale biological exchange between stars. But it seems that life systems need to be constructed in different ways and may need to operate on different time scales, rather than being meaningful only on earth. This possibility leads to some interesting ideas. Although we can speculate that life evolved from different substrates, the way we can best understand (though still limited) is the external technology of organism design driven by mechanism, which can decode complex life systems. In other words, these life machines will expand or replace organic biology and change the scope equations that limit when, where, and how “genetic” information is shared and transferred. < / P > < p > What’s unusual is that we’ve already done this, and whatever kind of corrective gene therapy is taken, it depends on a deep understanding of the gene function of healthy people, from DNA base pairs to the interaction between sequence genes and their environment. Although gene therapy may not be taken from one person and implanted into another, it is in many ways equivalent to doing so. < / P > < p > if we imagine that life elsewhere in the universe has evolved to the point where technology can manipulate its environment, then there is reason to think that machine mediated gene transfer and machine mediated biological reproduction may take place somewhere. It may be rationalized as a decision made by a conscious species, but it can also be seen as a direct mechanical extension of gene exchange and sexual life. < / P > < p > this opens up countless possibilities, such as: why insist on having sex with only two parents with genes? Recently, scientists have observed that the DNA of newborn infants is limited to the DNA of three newborn parents. Although this is to repair the dysfunctional mitochondrial genes, it opens the door to radical therapy. If we have a good understanding of the interaction between genes and developmental biology, we may be able to imagine that in today’s technologically advanced world, future generations will inherit selected gene combinations from dozens, hundreds, or even millions of “parents.”. < / P > < p > when we do this, any previous inference is very narrow. For example, if we have enough time and technology, a species and its biosphere may expand rapidly in the universe due to the expansion of information algorithms related to life, exchange and integrate with anything, and find a better way of biological development in the evolutionary theory selected by Darwin. A 10 billion year old Galaxy represents a wonderful treasure house of life experiments. Just like human sexual reproduction, testing gene mixing and matching is an effective way to explore variation, which may lead to stronger adaptability. If aliens are on earth, they won’t ask for a visit to the leader of a country. They may ask for some kind of life sample and corresponding permission. < / P > < p > sexual reproduction may be beneficial to prokaryotes on earth: to be able to endow life with as many genes as possible in its cosmic journey. In this way, new evolutionary experiments will be launched in a new incubation environment. If you come back thousands of years later, something new and useful may have emerged. Scale of biological exchange. But it seems that life systems need to be constructed in different ways and may need to operate on different time scales, rather than being meaningful only on earth. This possibility leads to some interesting ideas. Although we can speculate that life evolved from different substrates, the way we can best understand (though still limited) is the external technology of organism design driven by mechanism, which can decode complex life systems. In other words, these life machines will expand or replace organic biology and change the scope equations that limit when, where, and how “genetic” information is shared and transferred. < / P > < p > What’s unusual is that we’ve already done this, and whatever kind of corrective gene therapy is taken, it depends on a deep understanding of the gene function of healthy people, from DNA base pairs to the interaction between sequence genes and their environment. Although gene therapy may not be taken from one person and implanted into another, it is in many ways equivalent to doing so. < / P > < p > if we imagine that life elsewhere in the universe has evolved to the point where technology can manipulate its environment, then there is reason to think that machine mediated gene transfer and machine mediated biological reproduction may take place somewhere. It may be rationalized as a decision made by a conscious species, but it can also be seen as a direct mechanical extension of gene exchange and sexual life. < / P > < p > this opens up countless possibilities, such as: why insist on having sex with only two parents with genes? Recently, scientists have observed that the DNA of newborn infants is limited to the DNA of three newborn parents, although this is to repair the dysfunctional mitochondria