Do we Have any Alien DNA?

Pop science take, for fun

The mostly gray corridor refused to reflect the brightly streaming sunlight through a vast window at the end of the hallway. My colleague and I were chatting about various things while basking in the warmth of starlight. The heat energy on the skin feels right. As the conversation progresses, Steve mentions about 23 & me. He had learned so much from his DNA testing about his ancestry. Eerily, my Facebook feed showed me an ad for “23 & me” later that night. It was almost as if my phone was listening to our conversation.

Let’s take a leap though. With recent discoveries of finding some unknown DNA in our genome to the possibility that all life (including alien) to be based on the same four nucleotides (check the above article), it’s time to take our heads for a spin.

Chapter 1 — Hold on to your hat

Once upon a time, in a place far away — in a dusty classroom of a middle school, two kids stood in Vrksasana (‘tree pose’). I was standing next to them with a stopwatch in hand, waiting for one of them to lose their balance. It seemed like an eternity as my friends continued their flamingo pose with a focus that would have put monks to shame. As the designer of this game, I was aghast at their impressive feat. I could barely hold my balance for few seconds let alone what looked like long minutes to me. I called the game off in a tie as neither relented — fitdollar

This was the thought that initiated my musings into our amazing sense of balance. In that episode, I came across a fascinating set of information on the so-called little brain (‘Cerebellum’). It is a master at learning things and spends a great deal of time doing just that. When you are amused by a baby’s shaky attempts at motor skills, that’s the cerebellum in action. It’s trying to figure out how to give accurate commands while processing the barrage of information coming its way.

The cerebellum relies on a vast network of information channels that give it all the raw knowledge that it can convert to generate an action plan for the body to respond to. You can experience this feeling anytime you have spun around in circles and stopped suddenly.

So, why do we feel dizzy right after we stop spinning? … It is based on an intricate feedback circuitry that relies on a rich set of information to predict our body’s orientation in space. This information is both visual and based on the sensory data from the vestibular system.

Inside our ears is one of the feedback mechanisms called the vestibular system. Our vestibular system has three semi-circular rings. Within them is a fluid that our Cerebellum monitors to detect along which direction we are moving. There is a related structure (otolith) that takes care of linear acceleration and gravity! There is a sensor for gravity in our ears — it is unbelievable sophistication.

The part that detects gravity is intricately cool. It relies on a pouch of crystals that sit within a gel-like substance. These crystals are made of Calcium Carbonate (like our bones). When we lie down, gravity does not pull down the crystals so much. This change in force on the crystals is detected by our Cerebellum through fine hair that is attached to these crystals.

Normally, it takes very high temperature and pressure to form Calcium Carbonate crystals but in our bodies, the ‘biology’ assists in making these crystals. No problem.

It uses a process called biomineralization to form crystals while we are in the embryo stage. We have about 1000 of these tiny crystals in our inner ears. As we age, we do lose some of them and one of the reasons that we can get dizzy in our golden years is because we have lost many of these crystals.

Our brains evolved to detect that we live in a three-dimensional world. We also learned that there is a gravitational force that it needs to worry about. Imagine this — we have only figured out about the gravitational force only a few hundred years ago but evolution figured this out millions of years ago. How many more such concepts have our body already figured out but we are yet to find out?

Well, in reality, we don’t live in just a three-dimensional universe. It also moves through time. And, evolution has found a way to sense the passage of this mysterious concept called time. Not just humans but even Bees got this concept instilled in them.

As amazing it is to uncover these feats of evolution, we can always reason that there was a good chance and time for evolution to work on these problems. Millions of years. Evolution “experienced” the presence of all these forces and decided to work on them.

But, what about Tardigrades?

Chapter II — Tardigrades in space

In the hunt for signs of life, we have started to look at stars nearby and afar. Thousands of rocky worlds have been detected with the potential to harbor life. We don’t know what that life might look like because we don’t understand life on earth that well. Exhibit A — Tardigrades.

Tardigrades are fascinating creatures. They always have been but we never realized how awesome they are. Findings in the last decade showed that they can stay in a state of indefinite hibernation. They were revived after 2000 years of hibernation. They have survived extreme radiation in space.

In a recent experiment to see if they can be quantum entangled (why not?), they survived temperatures close to absolute zero Kelvin! They can tolerate extreme pressures and still live to tell the tale!

Evolution is amazingly mysterious. It has figured out the various forms of energy that are all around us and given us tools to surf those waves. For sound energy, it came up with ears. For light energy, it came up with eyes. For detecting gravity, it has come up with freaking crystals in our ears. It figured out the flow of time.

So, why did evolution bestow these superpowers to this amazing creature? Why on earth (literally) would it need to survive extreme pressures, temperature, and the ability to stay in suspended animation? It was almost as if it was built for space travel.

You can look at these fun facts about Tardigrades including this excerpt

Can Tardigrades Really Survive in Space?

Yes, for a time. In 2007, researchers in Europe sent tardigrades into space to test the limits of what they were able to endure. For 10 days, dehydrated tardigrades were exposed to the vacuum of low-Earth orbit. Upon returning to them to Earth, the researchers rehydrated them and a number of them were successfully revived and went on to produce viable offspring. No other lifeform has been known to exhibit anything similar to this level of adaptability, so it’s not hard to see why some began to speculate that they might have originated off-world.

Chapter III — I will have to decline, my alien overlord

We never knew the capabilities of Tardigrades until they were exposed to such conditions. When it comes to our own capabilities, our brains are wired to detect gravity, three-dimensional space, and passage of time (among other things). But, what happens when it is put into a place that it did not evolve in? Like zero-gravity.

Ever since we tried to land someone on the moon, we have had a fair amount of experience in zero gravity situations. Apparently, under this condition, our vestibular system can go haywire. Disorientation and other dizzying effects are reported by astronauts. Even scuba divers sometimes report disorientation because the buoyancy effects offset the effects of gravity.

The effects of zero gravity are even worse than dis-orientation. It seems like our brain ages faster for prolonged exposure to zero gravity.

It would have been really amazing if we had detected some previously unknown superpower when we experienced zero gravity. It doesn’t rule out the possibility of us sharing a part of our DNA with some space-faring aliens. Life would have been instantly more intriguing if it was the case, though. I still can’t get over that we have such a sophisticated gravity sensor. So, do many life forms in this world. And, possibly others?