'Mirror DNA' - Scientists Warn of Deadly Threat to All Life

In this week's 7 Days of Science, scientists warn us of a deadly threat, Saturn's rings may be much older than we had thought, and people in Finland build houses for seals!

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📜 Credits:
Presented by Ben Thomas
Written by Douglas James, Ben Thomas and Nicky Thomas
7 Days of Science is produced by Douglas James and Ben Thomas
7 Days of Science logo, graphics and more have been designed by Michael Buhler

Sources:
The risks of creating synthetic ‘mirror life’:

Saturn’s rings are much older than previously thought:

Perseverance rover climbs a hill:

The oldest-known saber-toothed gorgonopsian:

New sauropodomorph species Lishulong wangi found in China:

Human-Neanderthal interbreeding:

The skin has its own immune system:

Saving seals in Finland:

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:24 - Dangers of 'mirror life'
02:22 - Saturn's rings might be older
03:44 - Perseverance goes up a big hill
04:36 - Oldest sabre-toothed gorgonopsian
06:18 - New sauropodomorph dinosaur
07:13 - Human-Neanderthal interbreeding
08:26 - Skin has own immune system
09:27 - Finnish people save seals

[DaysofScience]

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!
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[davcar]

What a fun video title! Gives such warm and fuzzy feelings. This is exactly what we need right now.

[JanHuus-zv]

Oh boy! Man-made Horrors beyond my comprehension! Who had that on their apocalypse bingo card??

[DaemondMandiGrey]

So what your telling me is that biochemists just theoretically found the anti-life equation?

[Aleiza_]

"Finnish him!!!" I couldn't help it. Yeah another awesome 7DoS vid❤

[ajstang]

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

[melgillham]

Jurrassic park effect meets andromeda strain 😂

[Xygif]

As a Finn I am impressed by your pronunciation.

[thogthemighty]

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.

[JAGzilla-urlh]

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.

[eVillGaming-eng]

As someone who lives on lake Saimaa it always feels weird when international people mention the saimaa ringed seals

[KadenSlinker]

“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

[matthewdavies]

Accademia: "Most Deadly Threat to All Life!'"
Spinosaurus: "Hold my T-Rex."

[ppenmudera]

8:56 so Star Trek's hypospray could actually become reality too, another win for ST!

[takenname]

New inspiration for Sci-fi horror just dropped...

[MercuryAlphaInc]

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.

[ernestlam]

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.

[AryadiSubagio]

Take note writers, we have one more sci-fi apocalypse scenario: mirror life

[KP-fybf]

One thing that confuses me about this danger though is how mirror life would even be able to replicate in the first place.

All life is homochiral on earth because all the sugars, amino acids, etc, are all of the same chirality and thus if we wanted to break down or build on these homochiral molecules, organisms would have to be of the same chirality.

Obviously in the history of life there may have been countless instances of mirror versions of life popping up through random mutations in pockets of the world where natural (non biological) reserves of the basic building block of life might have preserved them. But since the biosphere as a whole is homochiral these mirror life would be snuffed out.

If we ever did produce mirror life those mirrored versions would be invisible to us, but all their building blocks would not be available for them.

The only way this works is if they have both chiral enzymes in their bodies to process the homochiral molecules of the biosphere, and then would have to convert back those molecules into their mirrored versions. This process seems to me very ineffecient, and if the advantage of mirror life is so great as to be able to replicate freely without predation, it would seem that even one mutant form of this version would have popped up into existence in the 4 odd bilion years of life.

But it hasn't, all evidence has suggested only one chirality of life. Thus it seems to me that therr is a fundamental reason as to why mirror life cant be possible in a world thats dominated by its opposite.

[SeverusFelix]

Science community: "Don't do this it could doom us all"
Some scientist in Wuhan or Tennessee: