New species of methane-producing archaea discovered in the human gut | Hacker News Reader

New species of methane-producing archaea discovered in the human gut

phys.org

68 pointsPaulHoule28 comments

I love seeing this kind of thing posted but it’s not surprising in the slightest. We’re forever discovering brew bacteria in our guts that are apparently unique. When I had my gut bacteria tested a full 20% of what I had hadn’t been named yet, and some possibly hadn’t been seen before.

I find it shocking and disturbing that we know so little about our own biology we are still discovering such things.

It’s like doctors didn’t have centuries to examine human bodies to learn from them.

It is not just the human body. Mysterious bacteria that people don't know how to cultivate in isolation are everywhere. Part of the story is that many bacteria don't really live alone but they depend on a plant or an animal or even other bacteria such as one species of large rod bacteria that has a different species of little rod bacteria that live on it, biofilms, etc.

> It is not just the human body.

I know, but I would expect doctors would, by know, not be so frequently surprised by things lurking in their own bodies.

Not that long ago a never before observed structure every human always had was discovered: https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-say-they-...

One disturbing recent discovery is that a strain of E. coli produces a genotoxin, colibactin, that could be the cause of the doubling in colon cancer among those under age 55 in the last 20 years.

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/01/gut-bacteria-may-play...

How many people took Zantac (ranitidine) the highly spammed H2 blocker? https://www.nfcr.org/blog/3-common-heartburn-drugs-are-assoc...

Doctors don't ask about this. People still take Prilosec, and it's acknowledged that it causes cancer. You get what you give: confirmation bias.

Edit: The essential problem is that ranitidine isn't shelf-stable. This could explain some problems with other theraputics which we won't name to avoid downvoting / politics.

> and it's acknowledged that it causes cancer.

This is not acknowledged as demonstrated, the studies are contradictory and observational.

It is acknowledged that nitrosamines cause cancer. It is acknowledged that ranitidine breaks down on the shelf to nitrosamines: this wasn't discovered by the FDA or another government agency, it was discovered by a mail-order, compounding pharmacy which also tests ingredients. Their discovery led to ranitidine being recalled.

As for prilosec: the cancer risk is acknowledged in the packaging.

I wasn't talking about ranitidine, so I don't know why you brought that up.

I don't see anything about cancer in the product information for Prilosec.

https://www.amazon.com/Prilosec-OTC-Heartburn-Medicine-Versi...

Perhaps you mean in California, where everything + dog has a cancer warning by law?

Squeeze this lemon till the juice come out: https://www.verywellhealth.com/does-omeprazole-cause-cancer-...

ddg:prilosec cancer

Buy some. Read the packaging. Fuck Amazon.

I have a package of generic omeprazole right in front of me. There is no cancer warning.

Fix it, so somebody doesn't have to die like you.

Your effort to fabricate evidence having failed, we see you didn't actually need evidence to reach your conclusion anyway.

Hey. I brought up ranitidine because it is specifically associated with nitrosamines, and nitrosamines cause colon cancer. No redirect: colon cancer. You take issue with prilosec being admitted to this debate, then that would be because ion pump moderators cause stomach cancer. My bad: stomach cancer irrelevant to you.

You can't see ranitidine when it farts in your face: nitrosamines cause colon cancer. Why is that not relevant? Why is that not potentially more relevant than foo foo microbes? (By the way, I eat sour cream or yogurt when I eat meat or take e.g. glucosamine. YMMV.)

Biology is so complex that extremely little is known about details. Grab a college textbook on introduction to zoology, and prepare to be blown away.

Why do you find it shocking and disturbing? If you go to the doctor, the average process of diagnosis and treatment is much like printf debugging - just sprinkle some based on instinct and run it again. We're surrounded by technological advancement that is making us feel like we're far in the future, but there's still so much we don't know.

How many of those centuries would they have been able to inspect, catalog, and widely distribute their findings about stuff as small as bacteria? The tools we have now are quite new, and still insufficient even now. Maybe in another 100 years we’ll have it all mapped out.

I had an interesting experience recently where I was sick with a virus for an entire month, ending up in multiple urgent cares followed by the ER for 24 hours.

They took blood from me seemingly every 10 minutes and ran every test they could and in the end couldn't figure out what it was. The doctors (in a very major hospital in a very major city) didn't even seem surprised, they just shrugged and said I had some unknown virus that they didn't have a test for. The way they acted it seemed like a regular occurrence. Just some mystery virus.

It was just so shocking for me that there could be some virus out there that had me horribly sick for an entire month, much sicker than covid or the flu ever made me, and there's not even a test for it, it's just spreading out there doing its thing. Makes me wonder how little we really know.

I’m not surprised you got sick from something that wasn’t identified before you got better. These things happen all the time.

I would imagine it was a known (or new) virus that would be identified if we had the time and resources. With so much money in pharmaceutical applications I am surprised there is still unsequenced DNA.

Try getting one of three experienced specialists to even test for the #2 most common ailment in their field…

Would be easier to catch oiled seals while blindfolded, in the rain.

Archaea are not bacteria; that's why this discovery is so significant.

You can blame the dog if you want to. I’m blaming Methanobrevibacter intestini sp. nov. (strain WWM1085).

The original source article:

https://microbiologysociety.org/news/press-releases/new-spec...

Which also works without javascript or cookies, unlike phys.org

> The discovery of Methanobrevibacter intestini and GRAZ-2 opens up a new chapter in archaea research as well as new perspectives for personalized microbiome medicine in the future.

It advances research, but personalized microbiome research seems a stretch goal. At least, it doesn't sound like it's likely to happen soon.

we are not even individuals, we are just walking cities of cells. We are Chimera.

This is perhaps what amazes me the most. We're each a Borg, we are a collective that has adapted the biological distinctiveness of bacteria that we've assimilated into a collective that "thinks." Pretty wild. That we gather in groups and act collectively just adds another layer of recursion to life.

It does make one reconsider the brain as the center of consciousness. Can we really upload our mind if the mind is actually the entirety of our collective being.

Marvin Minsky wrote about this in the 1980's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind

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