this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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We’re not sure if it’s exciting or not that scientists just discovered new ‘lifeforms’ inside of our bodies. Tiny bits of RNA, smaller than a virus, colonize bacteria inside our mouths and guts and have the power to transfer information that can be read by a cell.

Dubbed ‘wildly weird’ by the team of Stanford scientists writing about the find in Nature, the discovery now has a name: obelisks. And we ... don’t really know their end goal.

“It’s insane,” said Mark Peifer, a cell and developmental biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to Science. “The more we look, the more crazy things we see.”

Named obelisks because of their rod-shaped structures, they are even smaller than viruses, but they can still transmit instructions to cells. What they’re saying, however, we just don’t know.

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[–] bonenode@piefed.social 18 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Geez, that frickin' hype language.

"We... (dramatic pause, drum roll)... don't know their end goal!!!!!!”

”What they are saying, howeverrrrrr, we just don't know"

Like its a harmful alien lifeform invading us. I get it, you want science to be exciting for the broad public but damn, this just sounds idiotic. It is a new structure that hasn't been found before, we don't know how it regulates anything and they are looking into that. I am sure you can come up with something decent halfway between what I wrote and what the article says.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Especially when calling it an obelisk does no favours for the ominousness.

[–] HisArmsOpen@crust.piefed.social 12 points 15 hours ago

Great diversity and survival options. We were similarly scientifically astonished when we discovered plasmids and again when we discovered that our mitochondrial dna is passed down from our maternal lines, then our discovery that we are 'bags of viruses'. Then we unfolded understanding of RNA. This is equally amazing and I still have my mind blown. I cannot wait until this is explored and reported further!

[–] finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago

They're saying, "We need to find my menhir. Dogmatix, have you seen my menhir?"

[–] Zier@fedia.io 3 points 14 hours ago

I knew the Borg Nanobots would be found eventually.

[–] verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Original manuscript

Save it, as the chances this will get retracted are astronomical. 

[–] bonenode@piefed.social 1 points 3 hours ago

You can still download retracted papers though.

[–] nirodhaavidya@lemmy.world 14 points 20 hours ago
[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

Pluribus. 🤔