NASA announces Arsenic based life forms

[HavocXphere]

http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ned=en_za&cf=all&ncl=dqG5YqHD4EN-QYMTHTipuduD-FG3M

Needs to be independently verified of course....but very exciting.

EDIT for extra clarity: Its DNA strands contain arsenic. All other know life forms have phosphorus there instead. i.e. still has carbon in its DNA.

 

[HavocXphere]

Better explanation here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arsenic-based_life.php

 

[bdt]

Hey, you can't quote NASA without mentioning Randall!

ALT TXT: "According to a new paper published in the journal Science, reporters are unable to thrive in an arsenic-rich environment."

 

[Ockie]

Arsenic? Guess not a good idea to give it a bite to see if it tastes like chicken then.

 

[wrathex]

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth.

Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth.

Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA astrobiology research fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

- NASA : http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/dec/HQ_10-320_Toxic_Life.html

I can extrapolate that life and sentient life come in a very very broad variety, beyond our imaginations - certainly.



________________________
Well, if arsenic based lifeforms evolve towards sentience and become aliens, one thing is sure - we won't be able to eat them. - Quotes from The Galactic Cookbook

 

[seventhson]

- NASA : http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/dec/HQ_10-320_Toxic_Life.html

I can extrapolate that life and sentient life come in a very very broad variety, beyond our imaginations - certainly.



________________________
Well, if arsenic based lifeforms evolve towards sentience and become aliens, one thing is sure - we won't be able to eat them. - Quotes from The Galactic Cookbook

And you get people that refuse that there is nothing out there

 

[BCO]

And you get people that refuse that there is nothing out there

Yeah, I refuse that there is nothing out there. In other words, I accept that there is something out there. Careful of those double negatives, man.

 

[seventhson]

Yeah, I refuse that there is nothing out there. In other words, I accept that there is something out there. Careful of those double negatives, man.

Woops dude Was tired And a little um intoxicated

I meant to type

Then you get people who refuse that there are other life forms out there And that we are the only intelligent life in existence.

 

[murraybiscuit]

In the study, researchers examined a bacteria living in a very salty and arsenic-heavy lake in northeastern California, not far from Yosemite National Park. It is not a space alien, nor is it “new life” — it’s an existing bacteria that lives in a difficult environment and was deliberately manipulated in a lab.

http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...behavior-raising-questions-alien-life-hunters

finally. proof that extra terrestrial life exists. not.

 

[HapticSimian]

Woops dude Was tired And a little um intoxicated

I meant to type

Then you get people who refuse that there are other life forms out there And that we are the only intelligent life in existence.

That's not much better...