Nanobes are small, filamentous structures found in rocks, ranging from 20 to 50 nm in size. They may be living organisms, but their small size makes testing and analysis difficult. Some believe they may be the smallest and simplest class of life ever discovered. However, many scientists are skeptical of their viability as living organisms. They should not be confused with nanobacteria, which have cell walls. Nanobes have been compared to prions and have been found on the Martian meteorite ALH84001, but this is not evidence of their viability as living organisms.
Nanobes are bizarre stringy structures found in some rocks. They range in size from 20 nanometers to about 50 nm, about 10 times smaller than the smallest known bacteria. They are similar in size to some of the smallest known viruses, such as Parvovirus, only 25 nm in diameter and with a genome only 5,000 base pairs long.
Some theorize that nanobes are living organisms that self-replicate and even assist in the calcification of teeth, but the jury is still out on that hypothesis. Nanobes should not be confused with nanobacteria, another type of possible and controversial class of super-small life. The difference is that nanobacteria are said to have cell walls, while nanobes are filamentous structures without walls. If nanobes are confirmed to possess genetic material, as one researcher has claimed, they could be the smallest and simplest class of life ever discovered, and perhaps even among the earliest organisms on Earth.
Many scientists are skeptical that nanobes live because estimates of the smallest possible size for an organism vary around 200 nm. Plasmids and DNA require structures of at least this size to perform the functions common to all life as we know it. Therefore, if the nanobes are alive, they can reproduce using a hitherto unknown form of self-copying. Imaging with an electron microscope has found that they have somewhat mushroom-like morphologies. Their extremely small size makes them resistant to testing and analysis.
Nanobes are sometimes compared to prions, a small protein-based life form responsible for diseases such as bovine spongiform encephaly (BSE), which was considered controversial when it was first proposed in 1982.
It has been claimed that nanobes may have been found on the Martian meteorite ALH84001, along with nanobacteria, but unfortunately for nanobe enthusiasts, this is evidence against their viable status, not for it. There are many mineral structures that may superficially resemble life forms, but these are built by the self-assembly of molecular structures, not by evolution and natural selection. If nanobes were alive, it is likely that we would observe greater variations both in their structure and in the frequency with which they occur in the sample.
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