[ninalanyon]

The article makes it sound as though this is something only humans have. Which struck me as very odd.

But the paper in Cell says:

"• Found globally in diverse niches, obelisks also occur in human stool and oral microbiomes"

https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)01091-2

Much more reasonable.

[adrian_b]

Free preprint:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.20.576352v1

[ahazred8ta]

They resemble a single stranded circular RNA plasmid, stuck together into a hairpin shape. Plant viroids are 250-450 bases long, while obelisks seem to be in the 1000-1200 range. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_RNA -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_D