Talk:Obelisk (biology)

Obelisk - merger(s) would help?
Currently - seems there's several wikilinks to the purportedly newly discovered life form "obelisk" - "Obelisk (virology)" and "Obelisk (life form)" and "Obelisk (viroid)" - perhaps some merger(s) would help? - Comments Welcome - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Support mergers JM (talk) 14:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * At least two of these three names are a bit problematic:
 * Obelisk (life form): Many scientists don't consider viruses as life forms, for subviral agents it is even more doubtful.
 * Obelisk (viroid): The references consider obelisks as substantially different from known viroids, we should await the position of ICTV for both update of The International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature and updated and ratified ICTV Virus Taxonomy containing obelisks (to be mentioned: 1. there is no proposal yet for implementing obelisks, so it could pend some years; 2. the circular form of their RNA is similar to viroids, but obelisks contain genes that are unlike any discovered so far in other genoms, which may indicate a completely new realm).
 * Obelisk (virology) is O.K. due to Disambiguation, but the parenthetical disambiguation specifies the context to which the topic applies, not the generic class. The options could be Obelisk (viruslike entity) or Obelisk (viroid-like entity). --Petr Karel (talk) 15:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Science (journal) uses viruslike entity. JM (talk) 15:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I used "(virology)" because the subject is quite obviously being studied by virologists. I'm very, very curious how this topic develops...--Paragem (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that all proposed names are better than "(life form)". I also suggest "(biology)".  When I read the Nature article, its description seems to be less sensational than the article (and especially the proposed WP:ITN/C entry).  — Paleo  Neonate  – 00:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Better image
Don't you think that the current image (an Egyptian obelisk) it is a bit confusing ?

I think a proper image could be something like this of a viroid :



Alexcalamaro (talk) 18:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hm, the RNA folds into an obelisk-like shape, not into rods. Also, the RNA might spiral around its longitudinal axis. Maybe we could just hang around like sloths for a while, and look what illustrations the scientific journals will come up with--Paragem (talk) 20:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC).

Requested move 1 February 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Adumbrativus (talk) 08:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Obelisk (life form) → Obelisk (biology) – Per User:PaleoNeonate's suggestion  Bremps  ...  01:15, 1 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Support, biology seems more appropriate. Alexcalamaro (talk) 05:40, 1 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I also agree. Petr Karel (talk) 07:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support Biology is a more generic class than life form, and is sufficient to distinguish this type of obelisk from others. --MtPenguinMonster (talk) 09:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support Yes - *entirely* agree - biology seems the better choice for obelisk - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Would rather support a move to Obelisk (molecular biology). "Biology" is too generic for my taste.--Paragem (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. less awkward, sounds better, and since it's not exactly clear what these things are biology seems like a safer choice. SaracenaSarracenia (talk) 20:45, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support (biology). MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

A bit more caution is probably needed
This new life form is described in one unreviewed preprint that is entirely computational and contains no experimental work to validate the results. Even if this passes the threshold for a Wikipedia article, the language here should be way more hypothetical. 147.235.193.166 (talk) 12:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)


 * The article asserts that Zheludev et al provides experimental evidence of their existence in humans. Could you comment on that? MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:09, 2 February 2024 (UTC) MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To my understanding, they looked at previous studies that sequenced massive amounts of RNA in human gut and oral environments and found evidence in the genomic data gathered there. They haven't actually looked at an obelisk directly.
 * Now, their computational evidence *is* very solid. I don't think it's likely that they're completely wrong, but I still think caution is advised. 109.253.203.198 (talk) 19:24, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Additions by 2804:14D:4085:8419:C948:4894:C0C5:4092‎
This IP is adding some generic text and some refences which do not say anything about obelisks. "metatranscriptomic analysis of RNA sequencing", whatever it is, must be covered somewhere else. - Altenmann >talk 22:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

genetic code
"are not homologous with the genetic code": AFAIK, not the genetic code, but their sequence of bases has no homologs. I may be wrong, of course. I would recommend to say: "...with the sequences of any other living forms". ThePaw (talk) 18:15, 28 April 2024 (UTC)