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Mirror life is a scientific fantasy leading to a dangerous reality − a synthetic biologist explains how mirror bacteria could conquer life on Earth

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theconversation.com – Kate Adamala, Assistant Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota – 2025-02-11 07:46:00

Mirror life is a scientific fantasy leading to a dangerous reality − a synthetic biologist explains how mirror bacteria could conquer life on Earth

Synthetic biology offers many tantalizing possibilities, but scientists consider some projects too risky to pursue.
DBenitostock/Moment via Getty Images

Kate Adamala, University of Minnesota

Most major biological molecules, including all proteins, DNA and RNA, point in one direction or another. In other words, they are chiral, or handed. Like how your left glove fits only your left hand and your right glove your right hand, chiral molecules can interact only with other molecules of compatible handedness.

Two chiralities are possible: left and right, formally called L for the Latin laevus and D for dexter. All life on Earth uses L proteins and D sugars. Even Archaea, a large group of microorganisms with unusual chemical compositions, stick to the program on the handedness of the main molecules they use.

For a long time, scientists have been speculating about making biopolymers that would mirror compounds in nature but in the opposite orientation – namely, compounds made of D proteins and L sugars. Recent years have seen some promising advancements, including enzymes that can make mirror RNAs and mirror DNAs.

Diagam of two molecular models that are mirror images of each other, like the two hands they're superimposed on
Chirality refers to something that is not superimposable on its mirror image – like your hands.
NASA

When scientists observed that these mirror molecules behave just like their natural equivalents they considered that it would be possible to make a whole living cell from them. Mirror bacteria in particular had the potential to be a useful basic research tool – possibly allowing scientists to study a new tree of life for the first time and solve many problems in bioengineering and biomedicine.

This so-called mirror life – living cells made from building blocks with an opposite chirality to those that make up natural life – could have very similar properties to natural living cells. They could live in the same environment, compete for resources and behave like you would expect of any living organism. They would be able to evade infection from other predators and immune systems because these opponents wouldn’t be able to recognize them.

These features are why researchers like me were so attracted to mirror life in the first place. But these qualities are also huge bugs of this technology that make it a problem.

I am a synthetic biologist who studies using chemistry to create living cells. I am also a bioengineer who develops tools for the bioeconomy. As a chemist by training, engineering mirror life initially seemed like a fascinating way to answer foundational questions about biology and practically apply those findings to industry and medicine. As I learned more about the immunology and ecology of mirror life, however, I became aware of the potential environmental and health consequences of this technology.

Real concerns about hypothetical mirror life

It’s important to note that researchers are likely at least 10 to 30 years away from creating mirror bacteria. On the timescale of a fast-moving field like synthetic biology, a decade is a very long time. Creating synthetic cells is difficult on its own. Creating mirrored ones would require several technical breakthroughs.

However, it would come with a risk. If mirror cells were released into the environment, they would likely be able to quickly proliferate without much restriction. The natural mechanisms that keep ecosystems in balance, including infection and predation, would not work on mirror life.

Bacteria, like most life forms, are susceptible to viral infections. These bacterial viruses, or bacteriophages, enter bacteria by binding to their surface receptors and then use their cellular machinery to replicate. But just as a left glove doesn’t fit a right hand, natural bacteriophages wouldn’t recognize mirror cell receptors or be able to use its machinery. Mirror life would likely be resistant to viruses.

Microscopy image of many geometric balls attached to a translucent sphere by thin strands
Mirror bacteria may be able to evade the bacteriophages that would otherwise help keep them in check. Here, multiple bacteriophages are attached to a bacterial cell wall.
Professor Graham Beards/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Microorganisms foraging in the environment also keep bacterial populations in check. They differentiate food from nonfood by using chemical “taste” receptors. Anything those receptors bind to, such as bacteria and organic debris, are considered edible, while things that cannot bind to those receptors, such as rocks, are classified as inedible. Think about how a dog foraging on the kitchen floor will eat a bread roll but only sniff a spoon and move on. Mirror life would be, to the bacterial predators, more like a spoon than bread – predators would “sniff” it with their receptors and move on because these cells can’t bind.

Safety from being eaten would be great news for mirror bacteria, because it would allow it to replicate freely. It would be much worse news to the rest of the ecosystem, because mirror bacteria might hog all the nutrients and spread uncontrollably. Even if mirror bacteria don’t actively attack other organisms, they would still consume food sources other organisms need. And since mirror cells would have much lower death rates than regular organisms due to a lack of predation, they would slowly but surely take over the environment.

Even if mirror cells grow more slowly than normal cells, they would be able to grow without anything stopping them.

Insufficient immunity

Another biological control mechanism that wouldn’t be able to “sniff” out mirror cells is the immune system.

Your immune cells constantly check everything they find in your blood. The decision tree of an immune cell is fairly simple. First, decide whether something is alive or not, then compare it with its database of “self” – your own cells. If it is alive but is not a part of you, then it needs to be killed. Mirror cells likely wouldn’t pass the first step of that screen: it would not induce an immune response because the immune system would not be able to recognize or bind to mirror cell antigens. This means mirror cells could infect an unprecedentedly wide variety of hosts.

You might think an infection from mirror bacteria could be treated with antibiotics of the same handedness. It would probably work, and may even be easier on your gut than regular antibiotic therapy. Because antibiotics are also handed, mirror versions of these drugs would not affect your gut microbiome, just like how regular antibioics would not affect mirror cells.

But humans are a relatively small part of the ecosystem. All other animals and plants may also be susceptible to infection from mirror pathogens. While it is possible to imagine developing mirror antibiotics to treat human infections, it is physically impossible to treat the entire plant and animal world. If all organisms are susceptible to even a slow-moving infection by mirror bacteria, there is no good treatment that could be deployed across the entire ecosystem.

Better safe than sorry

Mirror life is an exciting research subject and a potential tool with some practical applications in medicine and biotechnology. But for many scientists, including me, none of those benefits outweigh the serious consequences to human health and the environment that mirror life poses.

I and a group of researchers in immunology, ecology, biosafety and security – including some who used to actively work on mirror life – conducted a thorough analysis of possible concerns regarding the creation of mirror life. No matter how we looked at it, straight up or in the mirror, the conclusions were clear: The potential benefits of engineering mirror life are not worth the risk.

YouTube video
Mirror life is scientifically tantalizing but ethically unwise.

There is no way to make anything completely foolproof, and that includes any safeguards built into a mirror cell that could prevent the risk of accidental or deliberate release into the environment. Researchers working in this space, including us, may find this disappointing. But not making mirror cells can ensure the safety and security of the planet. More discussion among the global scientific community about what kinds of research on mirror biomolecules and related technologies are safe – as well as how to regulate this research – can help safeguard against potential harms.

Keeping mirror cells inside the mirror, rather than making them a physical reality, is the clearest path to staying safe.The Conversation

Kate Adamala, Assistant Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Simple strategies can boost vaccination rates for adults over 65 − new study

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theconversation.com – Laurie Archbald-Pannone, Associate Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics, University of Virginia – 2025-03-14 07:51:00

Simple strategies can boost vaccination rates for adults over 65 − new study

Many older adults are not up to date on their vaccines.
Morsa Images via Getty Images

Laurie Archbald-Pannone, University of Virginia

Knowing which vaccines older adults should get and hearing a clear recommendation from their health care provider about why a particular vaccine is important strongly motivated them to get vaccinated. That’s a key finding in a recent study I co-authored in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

Adults over 65 have a higher risk of severe infections, but they receive routine vaccinations at lower rates than do other groups. My colleagues and I collaborated with six primary care clinics across the U.S. to test two approaches for increasing vaccination rates for older adults.

In all, 249 patients who were visiting their primary care providers participated in the study. Of these, 116 patients received a two-page vaccine discussion guide to read in the waiting room before their visit. Another 133 patients received invitations to attend a one-hour education session after their visit.

The guide, which we created for the study, was designed to help people start a conversation about vaccines with their providers. It included checkboxes for marking what made it hard for them to get vaccinated and which vaccines they want to know more about, as well as space to write down any questions they have. The guide also featured a chart listing recommended vaccines for older adults, with boxes where people could check off ones they had already received.

In the sessions, providers shared in-depth information about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases and facilitated a discussion to address vaccine hesitancy.

In a follow-up survey two months later, patients reported that the most significant barriers they faced were knowing when they should receive a particular vaccine, having concerns about side effects and securing transportation to a vaccination appointment.

The percentage of patients who said they wanted to get a vaccine increased from 68% to 79% after using the vaccine guide. Following each intervention, 80% of patients reported they discussed vaccines more in that visit than they had in prior visits.

Of the 14 health care providers who completed the follow-up survey, 57% reported increased vaccination rates following each approach. Half of the providers felt that the use of the vaccine guide was an effective strategy in guiding conversations with their patients.

YouTube video
A pamphlet at the doctor’s office can empower older patients to ask about vaccines.

Why it matters

Only about 15% of adults ages 60-64 and 26% of adults 65 and older are up to date on all the vaccines recommended for their age, according to CDC data from 2022. These include vaccines for COVID 19, influenza, tetanus, pneumococcal disease and shingles.

Yet studies consistently show that getting vaccinated reduces the risk of complications from these conditions in this age group.

My research shows that strategies that equip older adults with personalized information about vaccines empower them to start the conversation about vaccines with their clinicians and enable them to be active participants in their health care.

What’s next

In the future, we will explore whether engaging patients on this topic earlier is even more helpful than doing so in the waiting room before their visit.

This might involve having clinical team members or care coordinators connect with patients ahead of their visit, either by phone or through telemedicine that is designed specifically for older adults.

My research team plans to conduct a pilot study that tests this approach. We hope to learn whether reaching out to these patients before their clinic visits and helping them think through their vaccination status, which vaccines their provider recommends and what barriers they face in getting vaccinated will improve vaccination rates for this population.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.The Conversation

Laurie Archbald-Pannone, Associate Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics, University of Virginia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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3D printing will help space pioneers make homes, tools and other stuff they need to colonize the Moon and Mars

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theconversation.com – Sven Bilén, Professor of Engineering Design, Electrical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, Penn State – 2025-03-13 07:51:00

3D printing could make many of the components for future structures on Mars.
3000ad/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Sven Bilén, Penn State

Throughout history, when pioneers set out across uncharted territory to settle in distant lands, they carried with them only the essentials: tools, seeds and clothing. Anything else would have to come from their new environment.

So they built shelter from local timber, rocks and sod; foraged for food and cultivated the soil beneath their feet; and fabricated tools from whatever they could scrounge up. It was difficult, but ultimately the successful ones made everything they needed to survive.

Something similar will take place when humanity leaves Earth for destinations such as the Moon and Mars – although astronauts will face even greater challenges than, for example, the Vikings did when they reached Greenland and Newfoundland. Not only will the astronauts have limited supplies and the need to live off the land; they won’t even be able to breathe the air.

Instead of axes and plows, however, today’s space pioneers will bring 3D printers. As an engineer and professor who is developing technologies to extend the human presence beyond Earth, I focus my work and research on these remarkable machines.

3D printers will make the tools, structures and habitats space pioneers need to survive in a hostile alien environment. They will enable long-term human presence on the Moon and Mars.

An astronaut holding a wrench poses for the camera.
NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore holds a 3D-printed wrench made aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

From hammers to habitats

On Earth, 3D printing can fabricate, layer by layer, thousands of things, from replacement hips to hammers to homes. These devices take raw materials, such as plastic, concrete or metal, and deposit it on a computerized programmed path to build a part. It’s often called “additive manufacturing,” because you keep adding material to make the part, rather than removing material, as is done in conventional machining.

Already, 3D printing in space is underway. On the International Space Station, astronauts use 3D printers to make tools and spare parts, such as ratchet wrenches, clamps and brackets. Depending on the part, printing time can take from around 30 minutes to several hours.

For now, the print materials are mostly hauled up from Earth. But NASA has also begun recycling some of those materials, such as waste plastic, to make new parts with the Refabricator, an advanced 3D printer installed in 2019.

Manufacturing in space

You may be wondering why space explorers can’t simply bring everything they need with them. After all, that’s how the International Space Station was built decades ago – by hauling tons of prefabricated components from Earth.

But that’s impractical for building habitats on other worlds. Launching materials into space is incredibly expensive. Right now, every pound launched aboard a rocket just to get to low Earth orbit costs thousands of dollars. To get materials to the Moon, NASA estimates the initial cost at around US$500,000 per pound.

Still, manufacturing things in space is a challenge. In the microgravity of space, or the reduced gravity of the Moon or Mars, materials behave differently than they do on Earth. Decrease or remove gravity, and materials cool and recrystallize differently. The Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth; Mars, about two-fifths. Engineers and scientists are working now to adapt 3D printers to function in these conditions.

An illustration of an astronaut looking at a base camp on Mars.
An artist’s impressions of what a Mars base camp might look like.
peepo/E+ via Getty Images

Using otherworldly soil

On alien worlds, rather than plastic or metal, 3D printers will use the natural resources found in these environments. But finding the right raw materials is not easy. Habitats on the Moon and Mars must protect astronauts from the lack of air, extreme temperatures, micrometeorite impacts and radiation.

Regolith, the fine, dusty, sandlike particles that cover both the lunar and Martian surfaces, could be a primary ingredient to make these dwellings. Think of the regolith on both worlds as alien dirt – unlike Earth soil, it contains few nutrients, and as far as we know, no living organisms. But it might be a good raw material for 3D printing.

My colleagues began researching this possibility by first examining how regular cement behaves in space. I am now joining them to develop techniques for turning regolith into a printable material and to eventually test these on the Moon.

But obtaining otherworldly regolith is a problem. The regolith samples returned from the Moon during the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s are precious, difficult if not impossible to access for research purposes. So scientists are using regolith simulants to test ideas. Actual regolith may react quite differently than our simulants. We just don’t know.

What’s more, the regolith on the Moon is very different from what’s found on Mars. Martian regolith contains iron oxide –that’s what gives it a reddish color – but Moon regolith is mostly silicates; it’s much finer and more angular. Researchers will need to learn how to use both types in a 3D printer.

YouTube video
See models of otherworldly habitats.

Applications on Earth

NASA’s Moon-to-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology program, also known as MMPACT, is advancing the technology needed to print these habitats on alien worlds.

Among the approaches scientists are now exploring: a regolith-based concrete made in part from surface ice; melting the regolith at high temperatures, and then using molds to form it while it’s a liquid; and sintering, which means heating the regolith with concentrated sunlight, lasers or microwaves to fuse particles together without the need for binders.

Along those lines, my colleagues and I developed a Martian concrete we call MarsCrete, a material we used to 3D-print a small test structure for NASA in 2017.

Then, in May 2019, using another type of special concrete, we 3D-printed a one-third scale prototype Mars habitat that could support everything astronauts would need for long-term survival, including living, sleeping, research and food-production modules.

That prototype showcased the potential, and the challenges, of building housing on the red planet. But many of these technologies will benefit people on Earth too.

In the same way astronauts will make sustainable products from natural resources, homebuilders could make concretes from binders and aggregates found locally, and maybe even from recycled construction debris. Engineers are already adapting the techniques that could print Martian habitats to address housing shortages here at home. Indeed, 3D-printed homes are already on the market.

Meanwhile, the move continues toward establishing a human presence outside the Earth. Artemis III, now scheduled for liftoff in 2027, will be the first human Moon landing since 1972. A NASA trip to Mars could happen as early as 2035.

But wherever people go, and whenever they get there, I’m certain that 3D printers will be one of the primary tools to let human beings live off alien land.The Conversation

Sven Bilén, Professor of Engineering Design, Electrical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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George Washington, a real estate investor and successful entrepreneur, knew the difference between running a business and running the government

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theconversation.com – Eliga Gould, Professor of History, University of New Hampshire – 2025-03-10 07:50:00

President George Washington delivers his first inaugural address in April 1789 in New York City.
Painting by T.H. Matteson, engraving by H.S. Sadd, via Library of Congress

Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire

During his three presidential campaigns, Donald Trump promised to run the federal government as though it were a business. True to his word, upon retaking office, Trump put tech billionaire Elon Musk at the head of a new group in the executive branch called the Department of Government Efficiency.

DOGE, as Musk’s initiative is known, has so far fired, laid off or received resignations from tens of thousands of federal workers and says it has discovered large sums of wasted or fraudulently spent tax dollars. But even its questionable claim of saving US$65 billion is less than 1% of the $6.75 trillion the U.S. spent in the 2024 fiscal year, and a tiny fraction of the nation’s cumulative debt of $36 trillion. Because Musk’s operation has not been formalized by Congress, DOGE’s indiscriminate cuts also raise troubling constitutional questions and may be illegal.

Before they go too far trying to run the government like a business, Trump and his advisors may want to consider the very different example of the nation’s first chief executive while he was in office.

A man stands while behind him a man sits at a desk.
Elon Musk, left, and Donald Trump have undertaken an effort both describe as seeking to run government more like a business.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The first businessman to become president

Like Trump, George Washington was a businessman with a large real estate portfolio. Along with property in Virginia and six other states, he had extensive claims to Indigenous land in the Ohio River Valley.

Partly because of those far-flung investments, the first president supported big transportation projects, took an active interest in the invention of the steamboat, and founded the Patowmack Company, a precursor to the builders of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

Above all, Washington was a farmer. On his Mount Vernon estate, in northern Virginia, he grew tobacco and wheat and operated a gristmill. After his second term as president, he built a profitable distillery. At the time of his death, he owned nearly 8,000 acres of productive farm and woodland, almost four times his original inheritance.

Much of Washington’s wealth was based on slave labor. In his will, he freed 123 of the 300 enslaved African Americans who had made his successful business possible, but while he lived, he expected his workers to do as he said.

President Washington and Congress

If Washington the businessman and plantation owner was accustomed to being obeyed, he knew that being president was another matter.

In early 1790, near the end of his first year in office, he reflected on the difference in a letter to the English historian Catharine Macaulay. Macaulay had visited Mount Vernon several years before. She was eager to hear the president’s thoughts about what, in his reply, he described as “the last great experiment for promoting human happiness by reasonable compact.”

The new government, Washington wrote, was “a government of accommodation as well as a government of laws.”

As head of the executive branch, his own powers were limited. In the months since the inauguration, he had learned that “much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness. Few, who are not philosophical Spectators,” he told his friend, “can realise the difficult and delicate part which a man in my situation (has) to act.”

Although Washington did not say why his situation was delicate, he didn’t need to. Congress, as everyone knew, was the most powerful branch of government, not the president.

The previous spring, Congress had shown just how powerful it was when it debated whether the president, who needed Senate confirmation to appoint heads of executive departments, could remove such officers without the same body’s approval. In the so-called Decision of 1789, Congress determined that the president did have that power, but only after Vice President John Adams broke the deadlock in the upper house.

The meaning of Congress’ vote was clear. On matters where the Constitution is ambiguous, Congress would decide what powers the president can legally exercise and what powers he – or, someday, she – cannot.

When it created a “sinking fund” in 1790 to manage the national debt, Congress showed just how far it could constrain presidential power.

Although the fund was part of the Treasury Department, whose secretary served at the president’s pleasure, the commission that oversaw it served for fixed terms set by Congress. The president could neither remove them nor tell them what to do.

Inefficient efficiency

William Humphrey, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, was unconstitutionally fired by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.
Library of Congress

By limiting Washington’s power over the Sinking Fund Commission, Congress set a precedent that still holds, notably in the 1935 Supreme Court case of Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S.

To the displeasure of those, including Trump, who promote the novel “unitary executive” theory of an all-powerful president, the court ruled that President Franklin D. Roosevelt could not dismiss a member of the Federal Trade Commission before his term was up – even if, as Roosevelt said, his administration’s goals would be “carried out most effectively with personnel of my own selection.”

Like the businessman who currently occupies the White House, Washington did not always like having to share power with Congress. Its members were headstrong and independent-minded. They rarely did what they were told.

But he realized working with Congress was the only way to create a federal government that really was efficient, with each branch carrying out its defined powers, as the founders intended. Because of the Constitution’s checks and balances, the United States was – and is – a government based on compromise between the three branches. No one, not even the president, is exempt.

To his credit, Washington was quick to learn that lesson.The Conversation

Eliga Gould, Professor of History, University of New Hampshire

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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