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Oh no we've had that for a long time in the form of chemical engineering. It is not new, I think the concern is just you know if it gets loose and somehow for some reason doesn't immediately get crushed by all of the reverse particles surrounding it it might you know turn into something similar to a prion disease
Oh, it was on mine. Two decades ago I designed an AI system similar to what we're finally seeing today and no one cared. I knew it was only a matter of time until somebody more charismatic and healthy than myself would actually see it all the way through, but I had no idea how terrible people would be about how they use it. And they still haven't figured out the best uses for it like it people are completely oblivious to how powerful the tool it could be because they're fixated on using it in the worst possible way instead of the best. Now there are a lot of things that I've thought about but didn't actually have a full design for of other forms that I'm sure somebody who's more familiar in those areas does have a full design for and those are the ones that I'm worried about because I feel like it doesn't matter what you're thinking when you design the thing, someone's going to figure out how to use it for bad stuff. And apparently it doesn't matter if you don't actually build the thing because somebody else will eventually come up with it and build it anyway.
I had that moment when I tried to google about repairing my lawnmower and got instructions on how to connect my phone to a robotic mower so I can check in on it via video. Did you see about the solar flares driving the robot tractors mad? I'll take dystopian sci-fi over Stephen King tho...
You have no idea how amazing that skin immune system research is for me. I have an absolutely crippling phobia of needles, so every time I have to get a vaccine I need to basically be tranquilized on calming drugs to even manage, and that doesn't help with the panic-stress nausea. I want to stay healthy, but as a result I'm typically behind and lacking on yearly boosters. But with vaccine creams, I can finally get fully boosted and immunized! I mean, I'm not crazy about creams and ointments, but they're more just gross and icky, and less panic-inducing and traumatizing. Even thinking or talking about needles illicits an unpleasant and stressful physical sensation, I should really stop writing this. But yeah, I'd really like vaccine creams so I can stay healthy and immunized without taking three days off my lifespan per vaccine from sheer stress and trauma.
"yearly boosters" I mean we get one injection for chicken pox. One for measles, mumphs and rubella... What kind of yearly boosters do you need? Unless you're like in the military and need constant vaccines for horrifying tropical diseases, it's not that much of an issue.
I had very good results with EMDR for desensitization with PTSD and can go to the dentist without having a meltdown now. Perhaps you might find it helpful. 💜
@@N0sf3r4tuR1s3n Flu vaccine is yearly. Also, some vaccines for at-risk groups may be given more frequently based on individual health conditions. There are few other vaccines you can or should get throughout your life but are not mandatory or yearly, like HPV and Shingles vaccines.
The situation with the Finnish seals is interesting from a conservation point of view. First, big props to the volunteers for putting in the work to protect these animals. You're heroes and it's inspiring to see generosity like that in action. BUT. What is the plan here? If these seals can't reproduce effectively without human intervention, then their 'natural' lives are over. The global temperature probably isn't going to be lowered any time soon, so an arrangement wherein humans actively care for the seals and provide resources they need to survive is going to become permanent. "Traditional" natural selection where the species survives or dies on its own merits, no human intervention involved, won't take place anymore. The seals are essentially living in a large free-range zoo from here on in. What is my point? I don't know. This isn't inherently a good thing or a bad thing, just... a thing. This is how evolution plays out in the Anthropocene. For lots of species, obviously, not just the seals. It's new and it's weird.
Considering the first item in the video... Maybe the scientists should print out a picture of Ian Malcolm with the caption "Your scientists were so preoccupied that they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should." and look at it every day before they decide to do such... Things.
When logging got rid of all of the hollow trees in the forest man started making birdhouses. When global warming got rid of all the snow for the seals man started making seal houses.
Eh... I see plenty of bird nests in the woods. Bird feeders are a nice touch so long as you aren't too concerned with bears in your area. I think most critters are more resilient to climate and ecological changes than most people think they are.
Skin having different immune explains why I am no longer allergic to my cats (my distemper has gotten used to them so my eyes, nose and lungs no longer react) but if they scratch me it will always welt up
Yeah. If it would be hard, or impossible, for our immune system to fight mirror life, that should mean that it would be hard, or impossible, for mirror life to infect us.
From what I understand, DNA and only interact with molecules that are opposite-handed to them. And that this means that alien life forms with mirror DNA would show up to earth, there would be nothing with any nutritional value to them here because all life on earth has right-handed DNA and left-handed proteins, with which their fundamental bio-chemistry can not interact. So I would assume that this would so be the case for mirror-DNA bacteria; besides taking up physical space, there would be little to no interaction or competition for molecules with nutritional value. But not a scientist and only studied the whole subject as a hobby, so don't quote me on it.
And not really exactly how it works. It's a little bit more complicated than that. I guess if you mirrored everything 100%, but mirroring the DNA doesn't mean mirroring everything else. Does that make sense? There's already a whole bunch of organisms on the planet that have entirely different ways of doing genetic material that come from the way that the DNA is processed so adult think that's huge concern other than maybe chemical reactions with mirrored DNA I guess...? I mean I guess maybe the concern is that it would work like diseased prions?
Yeah yeah we've all read the story about the astronaut from a parallel earth that can't process foods because his body chemistry functions on mirrored molecules
The thumbnail shows two different colours of the same handedness DNA, rather than mirror DNA. I mean, just flip the layer in Photoshop and rotate it back to match. It’s not that hard.
Seeing Saturn through a telescope is so amazing. Pretty interesting to think that evidence appears to show the Earth used to have a ring. Make sure to check out Mars Guy each Sunday for Mars rover updates. Also, those sample tubes are never coming back until SpaceX sends people to pick them up by hand.
I just saw something called a smart telescope, or electronic telescope? But it looked like it was something definitely very cheap. Never saw a price, but the way it used your phones camera and computer for a lot of the work, it just reminded me of VR goggles about 10 years ago. Where you could turn your phone into a VR headset for about $20 with their kit.
A lady that helped develop this said. “They would like to start with mirroring the tree of life. AI, cern mirroring what do you think they’re trying to do with when added with the quantum??? Think people think!!
Is more complicated than that, but it would face potentially even more problems since it would be completely swarmed by things opposite to itself. Basically it could go bad both ways but there's probably a good reason that everything kind of ended up going down the same pathway and it likely has to do with just conflict between the two directions being incompatible with life and just crushing the less common of the two from the start. There are actually multiple ways that heritable factors move through existing life forms on earth, they just all happen to go the same way in terms of the molecules that they generate and that might not be an accident. Like you can have life come into existence more than once off of the dead remains of another life form but it's got to be in the same general structure or too many bad chemical reactions can occur and wipe it out immediately.
If in ten years we still haven't learned our lesson from AI and all the other evil technologies, this world is doomed. And all I or anyone else can hope for is better luck next time. Unless the evils of this world rob us of even that...
Well, as a compromise, we could whip up a quantum computer to simulate the exact quantum mechanics behind the creation of mirror life. All without having to create mirror life ourselves, and even if we do, it would only be to further advance our understanding of how such things would actually work. Taking things slow & steady in other words.
Why should we not create mirror lifeforms if they have such a cool title? "Mirror lifeforms"... I'm going to be the mangled corpse of a scientist in a absolutely fucked up lab if they keep on making it sound so cool.
I'm sitting here wondering why is that the target that they went for for an artificial life form? Like why would you do the most difficult one imaginable instead of keeping it simple? Is it because it's easier to track, because I feel like the ease of tracking it does not make up for the difficulty in overcoming unintentional chemical reactions with literally everything in the environment😂 like just make a custom polymerase dude
Now make a scifi horror movie where an evil mad scientist creates "mirror life" that like anti-matter threats to eat away all "normal" life on the planet.
I’m sure its totally safe and effective science. There’s no way they would ever alter a life form to gain some sort of function. Thank you for your fantastic content!
@raybod..... I'll simply wipe all my mirrors down with a mild bleach solution. Problem solved. I'm also available to fix most existential crises so call me 🤙
If mirror DNA would be a problem, nature would already do it, it would be called evolution. It is not like there are any real obstacles on evolving something like that, while it "sounds" like there are quite obvious incentives.
It would be very unlikely for complex molecules to naturally evolve into mirror versions, because of all the interactions that normally happen between the molecules of a cell. To have mirror DNA, you would also need mirrored or mirror-compatible versions of every single molecule in the cell that's meant to interact with DNA. All the histones, DNA replication mechanisms, DNA correction mechanisms, epigenetic mechanisms, etc.
@@Jpteryx This is because you are basing your logic on now, how hard it would be from now on, you have to base it on "start of life", it could always had happened, so you have cca 4 b years to work with and more simple DNA structures. This evolutionary non-choice was seemingly consistent for 4 b years, even if it was always available.
@@5daboz You're right, it would have been easy for life to start out with mirrored molecules, but once the first cells evolved and formed their DNA replication mechanisms, it would be prohibitively difficult for any of them to evolve mirrored versions of their molecules.
@@Jpteryx 2 ways. Start small, continue if it pays off (for bacteria etc.), do not underestimate evolution. And viruses, not that complex. My guess why both of those examples wouldn't work is because they doesn't pay. For a virus, you use a host to make more of you. If host is made from something else than your building blocks, you have a problem both on "how to make cell make more of you" and "how to find in cell stuff to make more of you". Same with bacteria etc., hard to predate on something you can't use to consume and reproduce, because it is made from wrong kind of stuff. At best change would be made as a defensive manever, stuff is being less able to predate you, but then again, anything is able to follow you the moment you make a move, so not really, they can change too. This video is mostly about "dangerous pathogens" if I remember correctly ... that are then unable to use you for food or reproduction? It just makes no sense. You are just made out of a wrong kind of stuff for them.
I rather suspect that at some point both have existed, but because they cause problems for each other one of them eventually became the most prevalent and just crushed the other one out of existence. We have lots of different ways that DNA and RNA function, but they all have this one particular quirk and that's probably because if you try to go against that you're kind of screwed.
Looking for a Christmas gift for that person you know who loves wacky science stuff? Want some surprise science goodies for yourself? Want to support your favourite science communicators and help Doug fuel his pastry addiction? Check out our sponsors - Curiosity Box!
Our super special affiliate link: the-curiosity-box.pxf.io/DKjO2q
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So what your telling me is that biochemists just theoretically found the anti-life equation?
Darkseid about to track down their ahh
Oh no we've had that for a long time in the form of chemical engineering. It is not new, I think the concern is just you know if it gets loose and somehow for some reason doesn't immediately get crushed by all of the reverse particles surrounding it it might you know turn into something similar to a prion disease
Oh boy! Man-made Horrors beyond my comprehension! Who had that on their apocalypse bingo card??
Invest!
@KaiserV-2 😂 Unless they want a basket of eggs as payment I don't think I will!
✋😜
Oh, it was on mine. Two decades ago I designed an AI system similar to what we're finally seeing today and no one cared. I knew it was only a matter of time until somebody more charismatic and healthy than myself would actually see it all the way through, but I had no idea how terrible people would be about how they use it. And they still haven't figured out the best uses for it like it people are completely oblivious to how powerful the tool it could be because they're fixated on using it in the worst possible way instead of the best. Now there are a lot of things that I've thought about but didn't actually have a full design for of other forms that I'm sure somebody who's more familiar in those areas does have a full design for and those are the ones that I'm worried about because I feel like it doesn't matter what you're thinking when you design the thing, someone's going to figure out how to use it for bad stuff. And apparently it doesn't matter if you don't actually build the thing because somebody else will eventually come up with it and build it anyway.
What a fun video title! Gives such warm and fuzzy feelings. This is exactly what we need right now.
“You know you’re scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they never stopped to think if they should.” ~ Ian Malcom, 1993
Nothing like paraphrasing something gramatically wrong for someone that doesn't apply into this situation
@ Sorry.
The fact that we can now confidently say that synthetic life is ONLY 'at least a decade' away is ludicrous to me. We are living in a sci fi book
Specifically, a Sci-fi dystopia.
I had that moment when I tried to google about repairing my lawnmower and got instructions on how to connect my phone to a robotic mower so I can check in on it via video. Did you see about the solar flares driving the robot tractors mad? I'll take dystopian sci-fi over Stephen King tho...
Yep!
Note that the vast majority of sci-fi is dystopian. When will the science addicts learn... Hopefully before it's too late.
@@GustafUNL I'm assuming the military are wondering how they could possibly use it to their advantage 😂
Jurrassic park effect meets andromeda strain 😂
That's just _Species_. DNA from space, and mad government scientists hybridise it with humans because of course they do.
"Finnish him!!!" I couldn't help it. Yeah another awesome 7DoS vid❤
You have no idea how amazing that skin immune system research is for me. I have an absolutely crippling phobia of needles, so every time I have to get a vaccine I need to basically be tranquilized on calming drugs to even manage, and that doesn't help with the panic-stress nausea. I want to stay healthy, but as a result I'm typically behind and lacking on yearly boosters. But with vaccine creams, I can finally get fully boosted and immunized! I mean, I'm not crazy about creams and ointments, but they're more just gross and icky, and less panic-inducing and traumatizing. Even thinking or talking about needles illicits an unpleasant and stressful physical sensation, I should really stop writing this. But yeah, I'd really like vaccine creams so I can stay healthy and immunized without taking three days off my lifespan per vaccine from sheer stress and trauma.
"yearly boosters" I mean we get one injection for chicken pox. One for measles, mumphs and rubella... What kind of yearly boosters do you need? Unless you're like in the military and need constant vaccines for horrifying tropical diseases, it's not that much of an issue.
@@N0sf3r4tuR1s3nflu, covid, possibly pneumonia (I think that's 6 years til a certain age) all come immediately to mind
I had very good results with EMDR for desensitization with PTSD and can go to the dentist without having a meltdown now. Perhaps you might find it helpful. 💜
Oof. I’m gradually going down that fear of needles route along with dentistry fear. Hope you’re doing well.
@@N0sf3r4tuR1s3n Flu vaccine is yearly. Also, some vaccines for at-risk groups may be given more frequently based on individual health conditions.
There are few other vaccines you can or should get throughout your life but are not mandatory or yearly, like HPV and Shingles vaccines.
The situation with the Finnish seals is interesting from a conservation point of view. First, big props to the volunteers for putting in the work to protect these animals. You're heroes and it's inspiring to see generosity like that in action.
BUT. What is the plan here? If these seals can't reproduce effectively without human intervention, then their 'natural' lives are over. The global temperature probably isn't going to be lowered any time soon, so an arrangement wherein humans actively care for the seals and provide resources they need to survive is going to become permanent. "Traditional" natural selection where the species survives or dies on its own merits, no human intervention involved, won't take place anymore. The seals are essentially living in a large free-range zoo from here on in.
What is my point? I don't know. This isn't inherently a good thing or a bad thing, just... a thing. This is how evolution plays out in the Anthropocene. For lots of species, obviously, not just the seals. It's new and it's weird.
As someone who lives on lake Saimaa it always feels weird when international people mention the saimaa ringed seals
As a Finn I am impressed by your pronunciation.
Eikä! Suomalainen!
8:56 so Star Trek's hypospray could actually become reality too, another win for ST!
It already exists. See _jet injector_ in Wikipedia.
Accademia: "Most Deadly Threat to All Life!'"
Spinosaurus: "Hold my T-Rex."
Anyone else having issues accessing the curiousity box site? Ublock hates it, for a start, then it goes to a dead link even when I whitelist it.
Considering the first item in the video... Maybe the scientists should print out a picture of Ian Malcolm with the caption "Your scientists were so preoccupied that they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should." and look at it every day before they decide to do such... Things.
New inspiration for Sci-fi horror just dropped...
When logging got rid of all of the hollow trees in the forest man started making birdhouses. When global warming got rid of all the snow for the seals man started making seal houses.
Eh... I see plenty of bird nests in the woods. Bird feeders are a nice touch so long as you aren't too concerned with bears in your area. I think most critters are more resilient to climate and ecological changes than most people think they are.
Always good to see sauropodamorph news, thank you🎉
9:39 Finland!!!! Woooo
"better to be safe than sorry about" now if only they also applied that to AI...
I wholeheartedly agree with you
That last story is awesome
So proud of those people.
7 days of fun! 🥳
My introduction to the gorgonopisians was primeval and walking with monsters
Jesus. Scientist often ask if we could but some never asked whether we _SHOULD_
Jeff Goldblum not Jesus H. Christ.
Right. As the old saying goes, the road to ruin is paved with good intentions.
At least this time they're ahead of the curve- but generally yeah...
@matthewdavies2057 what does the H stand for?
Ahh yes, Jesus's famous teaching
Correct pronunciation of Saimaa! Woo!!
Skin having different immune explains why I am no longer allergic to my cats (my distemper has gotten used to them so my eyes, nose and lungs no longer react) but if they scratch me it will always welt up
New channel 👍You are all awesome 👍Merry Christmas 🎄
Science community: "Don't do this it could doom us all"
Some scientist in Wuhan or Tennessee: "yeeeeeeeehaw"
Covid 19 wasn't made in a lab...
@SeverusFelix. 😂. Even most of us can honestly say that we've had the thought, "I wonder what would happen if......"
@@theangrysuchomimus5163As if you know?
We got Biological Dark Energon before GTA6
2:07 This assumes a lot
Can life'R| consume |life'S| ? Visa versa?
Yeah. If it would be hard, or impossible, for our immune system to fight mirror life, that should mean that it would be hard, or impossible, for mirror life to infect us.
From what I understand, DNA and only interact with molecules that are opposite-handed to them. And that this means that alien life forms with mirror DNA would show up to earth, there would be nothing with any nutritional value to them here because all life on earth has right-handed DNA and left-handed proteins, with which their fundamental bio-chemistry can not interact. So I would assume that this would so be the case for mirror-DNA bacteria; besides taking up physical space, there would be little to no interaction or competition for molecules with nutritional value. But not a scientist and only studied the whole subject as a hobby, so don't quote me on it.
Better safe than sorry, I don’t the pretty birds in my back yard to disappear, we have already done enough and nature couldn’t take it anymore
Mirror bacteria could still eat the symmetrical molecules in our bodies; that's one of the main problems the paper is pointing out.
And not really exactly how it works. It's a little bit more complicated than that. I guess if you mirrored everything 100%, but mirroring the DNA doesn't mean mirroring everything else. Does that make sense? There's already a whole bunch of organisms on the planet that have entirely different ways of doing genetic material that come from the way that the DNA is processed so adult think that's huge concern other than maybe chemical reactions with mirrored DNA I guess...? I mean I guess maybe the concern is that it would work like diseased prions?
Yeah yeah we've all read the story about the astronaut from a parallel earth that can't process foods because his body chemistry functions on mirrored molecules
And prions
new sci fi horror trope dropped
Lab in China furiously taking notes on how to reverse DNA. And sell it in fish market nearby
Take note writers, we have one more sci-fi apocalypse scenario: mirror life
Maybe Finland should rename that region to Flipperland.
Räpylämaa
Didn't Australian natives arrive at pretty much that time in Australia?
Didn't know Malorca had Permian fossils
Could mirror lifeforms potentially happen naturally, like could an alien planet have done that hypothetically?
Yes, alien life with equivalents of molecules we have definitely could have mirrored versions.
The thumbnail shows two different colours of the same handedness DNA, rather than mirror DNA.
I mean, just flip the layer in Photoshop and rotate it back to match. It’s not that hard.
Wow is like the biological equivalent to dark matter. I never thought of this but it makes a lot of sense.
Seeing Saturn through a telescope is so amazing. Pretty interesting to think that evidence appears to show the Earth used to have a ring. Make sure to check out Mars Guy each Sunday for Mars rover updates. Also, those sample tubes are never coming back until SpaceX sends people to pick them up by hand.
I guess we'll never get the samples then 😂
I just saw something called a smart telescope, or electronic telescope? But it looked like it was something definitely very cheap. Never saw a price, but the way it used your phones camera and computer for a lot of the work, it just reminded me of VR goggles about 10 years ago. Where you could turn your phone into a VR headset for about $20 with their kit.
Well doesn't this sound like a fantastic idea!
Oranges and lemons have mirrored molecules. That's how much difference it can make.
A lady that helped develop this said. “They would like to start with mirroring the tree of life. AI, cern mirroring what do you think they’re trying to do with when added with the quantum??? Think people think!!
So this is basically the Netflix movie Annihilation,..?
Poor mice… Great video though! I just hate animal testing.
Spirals vs Anti-spirals for real!
Life may have evolved several times. Each time, it was eaten by the one that was already there. Shooting noobs in the lobby for raw materials
Yay Science
Ben and Emilia have yet to be carboarded
Important question: does anti-life have an evil mustache?
Wouldn’t mirror life be unable to digest food, in the same way that left handed sugar can’t be digested?
It would be able to digest food molecules that are already symmetrical, including ones in our bodies.
Is more complicated than that, but it would face potentially even more problems since it would be completely swarmed by things opposite to itself. Basically it could go bad both ways but there's probably a good reason that everything kind of ended up going down the same pathway and it likely has to do with just conflict between the two directions being incompatible with life and just crushing the less common of the two from the start. There are actually multiple ways that heritable factors move through existing life forms on earth, they just all happen to go the same way in terms of the molecules that they generate and that might not be an accident. Like you can have life come into existence more than once off of the dead remains of another life form but it's got to be in the same general structure or too many bad chemical reactions can occur and wipe it out immediately.
For the skin immunity, we'd better call the new treatments hyposprays lol
It already exists. See _jet injector_ in Wikipedia.
If in ten years we still haven't learned our lesson from AI and all the other evil technologies, this world is doomed. And all I or anyone else can hope for is better luck next time. Unless the evils of this world rob us of even that...
It's never the technology that's evil. It's the people who are using it.
@@darcieclements4880 You are wrong.
... am I the only one who heard "Let's go finish people" instead of "Let's go Finnish people"? 😳
AND
If you can give us a latin translation of 7 Days of Science, mybe a taxonomist will name a species after your channel.
Sept dies scientia? I'm sure the grammars borked.
Lishulong wangi! Sounds a bit rude. :)
What? Another society-ending global event? I haven't even had dinner yet.
I’m a therapsid
Well, as a compromise, we could whip up a quantum computer to simulate the exact quantum mechanics behind the creation of mirror life. All without having to create mirror life ourselves, and even if we do, it would only be to further advance our understanding of how such things would actually work. Taking things slow & steady in other words.
It's been fun watching you Boys growing to be Men !:-)
I'd love non needles based vaccination.
Why should we not create mirror lifeforms if they have such a cool title? "Mirror lifeforms"... I'm going to be the mangled corpse of a scientist in a absolutely fucked up lab if they keep on making it sound so cool.
I'm sitting here wondering why is that the target that they went for for an artificial life form? Like why would you do the most difficult one imaginable instead of keeping it simple? Is it because it's easier to track, because I feel like the ease of tracking it does not make up for the difficulty in overcoming unintentional chemical reactions with literally everything in the environment😂 like just make a custom polymerase dude
Idk based on how the current universe is going, I think our "mirror life" might turn out to be the Federation...
Fascinating.
Now make a scifi horror movie where an evil mad scientist creates "mirror life" that like anti-matter threats to eat away all "normal" life on the planet.
Mirror life is easily spotted by its goatee.
@@WaterShowsProd Hopefully the goatee and facial recognition will fix the issue. And clean your mirrors with disinfectant people!!
It's okay, we're all doomed anyway.
Mirror Dna vs evolved A.I. Let them fight.
If Ben had a scientific name it would be, "gorgeousopisians:. He is handsome!
So… wait.. can we just.. not create synthetic life then?? What’s the purpose for all that??
Mirror life? They're talking about the Antispiral
Playing God always ends well
First!
The more you try to deceive in your title the less credibility you have. I'm sorry sensationalistic dude but I like science not fake. You are flushed.
Good luck creating life in a lab, you haven't done it yet, so we'll see.
Aw braw, let's just continue to create our own demise.
Brilliant.
Ffs.
Dont start being clickbaity lol your works good enough to stand on its own
I’m sure its totally safe and effective science. There’s no way they would ever alter a life form to gain some sort of function.
Thank you for your fantastic content!
Elon Musk might be right about Mars, 3:57 if idiot scientists create life forms that kill off all life on Earth.
@raybod..... I'll simply wipe all my mirrors down with a mild bleach solution. Problem solved. I'm also available to fix most existential crises so call me 🤙
If mirror DNA would be a problem, nature would already do it, it would be called evolution.
It is not like there are any real obstacles on evolving something like that, while it "sounds" like there are quite obvious incentives.
It would be very unlikely for complex molecules to naturally evolve into mirror versions, because of all the interactions that normally happen between the molecules of a cell. To have mirror DNA, you would also need mirrored or mirror-compatible versions of every single molecule in the cell that's meant to interact with DNA. All the histones, DNA replication mechanisms, DNA correction mechanisms, epigenetic mechanisms, etc.
@@Jpteryx This is because you are basing your logic on now, how hard it would be from now on, you have to base it on "start of life", it could always had happened, so you have cca 4 b years to work with and more simple DNA structures. This evolutionary non-choice was seemingly consistent for 4 b years, even if it was always available.
@@5daboz You're right, it would have been easy for life to start out with mirrored molecules, but once the first cells evolved and formed their DNA replication mechanisms, it would be prohibitively difficult for any of them to evolve mirrored versions of their molecules.
@@Jpteryx 2 ways. Start small, continue if it pays off (for bacteria etc.), do not underestimate evolution. And viruses, not that complex.
My guess why both of those examples wouldn't work is because they doesn't pay. For a virus, you use a host to make more of you. If host is made from something else than your building blocks, you have a problem both on "how to make cell make more of you" and "how to find in cell stuff to make more of you". Same with bacteria etc., hard to predate on something you can't use to consume and reproduce, because it is made from wrong kind of stuff.
At best change would be made as a defensive manever, stuff is being less able to predate you, but then again, anything is able to follow you the moment you make a move, so not really, they can change too. This video is mostly about "dangerous pathogens" if I remember correctly ... that are then unable to use you for food or reproduction? It just makes no sense. You are just made out of a wrong kind of stuff for them.
I rather suspect that at some point both have existed, but because they cause problems for each other one of them eventually became the most prevalent and just crushed the other one out of existence. We have lots of different ways that DNA and RNA function, but they all have this one particular quirk and that's probably because if you try to go against that you're kind of screwed.