Animal that doesn't need oxygen to survive discovered

Another blow to a natural interpretation of evolution.

Breathing oxygen is seen as a fundamental characteristic of multicellular animals, but we have found at least one that can’t do it.

“It has lost the ability to breathe oxygen,” says Dorothee Huchon at Tel Aviv University in Israel. It remains a mystery how this animal, a parasite that infects salmon, gets the energy it needs without oxygen, she says, but it probably steals it from its host.

www.newscientist.com...



Here's more:

All plants and animals were thought to use oxygen to generate a fuel called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which powers cellular processes. The generation of ATP from oxygen takes places in structures called mitochondria.

Each mitochondrion has its own tiny genome that is separate from the main genome in the cell nucleus. But when Huchon and her colleagues sequenced the DNA of Henneguya salminicola, which is related to jellyfish, they thought they had made a mistake because they found no mitochondrial DNA at all.

www.newscientist.com...

On a side note, this would make for a good sci-fi/horror movie. This parasite steals energy to survive mostly from salmon but imagine a parasite you couldn't kill, that didn't breathe oxygen and and fed off of energy from humans to survive.

How does a natural interpretation of evolution explain this?

originally posted by: neoholographic

How does a natural interpretation of evolution explain this?

It can't. Evolutionary theory has had its Achilles heel torn thousands of times over. It just gets ignored because there's grant money and scientists' egos at stake.

It kind of looks like it could be a miniature ET, got all the bells and whistles of an alien lifeform.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: neoholographic

How does a natural interpretation of evolution explain this?

It can't. Evolutionary theory has had its Achilles heel torn thousands of times over. It just gets ignored because there's grant money and scientists' egos at stake.

Exactly!

How can a natural interpretation explain a multicellular lifeform that evolved without needing oxygen and without mitochondrial DNA? Where's the intermediate steps? Like you said, it can't.

This is almost like an alien species. How can a multicellular lifeform like this evolve on earth?

Um... Life neither needed oxygen nor did it have mitochondrial DNA until later on in earth's evolution... Oxygen was poison to life originally before it evolved. None of this is that extraordinary, nor is it outside the bounds of evolution or scientific possibility...

It needs something consuming oxygen to survive. It's a parasite on oxygen consuming animals. It still needs oxygen.

a reply to: neoholographic

Shouldn't this all start with the realisation that this organism doesn't NEED to do it, rather than CAN'T do it and has not "lost" anything but gained something?

Bloody smart if you ask me....for a parasite.

Scary that this scenario plays out all around us in every day life.

a reply to: neoholographic

It's ancestral history would need to be mapped out before jumping to conclusions here... if anything this might be more evidence of evolution working. It should be noted that viruses, and majority of bacteria, and similar cellular makeups, do not require oxygen to survive. So who knows what will come from this. It's exciting regardless.

Evolution still happens tho. Just saying.

originally posted by: rickymouse
It kind of looks like it could be a miniature ET, got all the bells and whistles of an alien lifeform.

Or a REALLY good at paying attention sperm with big eyes and radioactive genitals of it's own.

I'm jealous.

originally posted by: neoholographic
On a side note, this would make for a good sci-fi/horror movie. This parasite steals energy to survive mostly from salmon but imagine a parasite you couldn't kill, that didn't breathe oxygen and and fed off of energy from humans to survive.

How does a natural interpretation of evolution explain this?

An normal air breathing human that eats salmon and steals other people's energy.

Pretty close.

originally posted by: Puppylove
Um... Life neither needed oxygen nor did it have mitochondrial DNA until later on in earth's evolution... Oxygen was poison to life originally before it evolved. None of this is that extraordinary, nor is it outside the bounds of evolution or scientific possibility...

O2 is a waste product created from life forms, so there wasn't much 3 billion years ago...Not sure why this is big news

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: neoholographic

How does a natural interpretation of evolution explain this?

It can't. Evolutionary theory has had its Achilles heel torn thousands of times over. It just gets ignored because there's grant money and scientists' egos at stake.

Not many people like to speak out about the evolution religion

A biology major once told me ...

if you put all the parts of a bicycle in a box and shake it long enough you will get a assembled bicycle but who's to stop the box from shaking

Adaptation is not evolution we are using adaptation as proof of evolution

Hopefully its not in the salmon we have been eating...…

Danggit we are being terraformed!! I only about thirty percent believe that though. That mostly based on the weeds on property look different from what I remember. Most are the same. There about three or four regular ones here I never. Noticed in nearby places I grew up in. The damnedest thing, they pop-up looking like plants I grow for food to an extent at first glance. Then I remembered them permanently. Is this a perception thing like when people speak of less insects divesity than wh n they were growing up, but mostly could be chaulked up to urbanization/sprawl/growth.and pesticides .

Perhaps since I'm only a few years Into growing food plants it is a common occurrence in backyard gardening?? Do weeds imitate the appearance of nearby plants in herb and leafy greens gardens?? Seen plants try to look like Swiss chard and spinach, arugula, sweet Basil and cilantro in early sprout. The real ones get more distinguished as they mature, the weeds just stay the same.

I say bring it oxygen deprived microbe! I bet that power is also your weakness!! We shall drown you in pure oxygen and observe... Yea, that 'oughtta do it.

Humans will win again I say.

a reply to: neoholographic

but it probably steals it from its host.

So it still uses oxygen.

a reply to: neoholographic

If you can get over the speciation end-of-genetic-line sexual breeding problem inherent in all evolutionary models, then you could suggest that it evolved from anaerobic bacteria.

Or, perhaps it all evolved from virii, which have no metabolic machinery (except that virii require the already evolved chemistry of other life, to replicate).

originally posted by: Puppylove
Um... Life neither needed oxygen nor did it have mitochondrial DNA until later on in earth's evolution...

You're just making stuff up. You're assuming evolution is true, and making conjecture to fit that narrative. It's backwards science. There's no empirical evidence to demonstrate how metabolism could have evolved. Take for example the electron transport chain which generates energy in aerobic organisms. It is about as likely as a hydrogen fuel cell generator being manufactured by random chance - absolutely impossible. The mitochondria is even more complex than a hydrogen fuel cell because it is self-replicable... a feat that even the most intelligent engineer could not fathom as possible.

Evolutionary theory is not based in reality. Due to their immense interdependence and complexity, Biological organisms must be the result of an Intelligent Being.

originally posted by: strongfp

Evolution still happens tho. Just saying.

Yet there has never been one empirical example of an organism changing into another kind of organism. Scientists around the world have artificially bred fruit flies, mice, etc, for millions of generations and yet they still remain fruit flies and mice.

a reply to: cooperton

Dude this is like known science... it's the basics of early life on earth... I don't see how people can not know this...

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: cooperton

Dude this is like known science... it's the basics of early life on earth... I don't see how people can not know this...

No that is only conjecture. They assume that life must have started like that, because they assume evolutionary theory must be true. It is literally backwards science.

The whole theory has no actual empirical evidence to stand on. Take for example soft tissue being found in dinosaur bones. Real science shows evolution is an outright lie.

a reply to: cooperton

No they've determined that due to various current life forms that still exist as well as geological evidence.