Yesterday, your DNA was essentially the same as that of every other organism in existence. If it was alive, you were related to it.
Today, that's no longer true.
Today, that's no longer true.
NASA's big announcement - Arsenic-loving bacteria
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
Technically, that's not necessarily true.
These new bacteria can indeed integrate arsenic into their biomolecular architecture, which makes them unique so far.
BUT. They still prefer phosphorous-based environments and only use arsenic when in a very arsenic-heavy environment. That makes their ability to integrate arsenic more likely to be an evolutionary adaptation of our own biological heritage rather than a separately-evolved type of life.
Still very interesting and intriguing of course, but important not to oversell it either.
Who wants to bet that when more of this bacteria is brought to the surface to be studied, it'll end up unleashing a massive plague that will kill us all?
If you look at the study itself, the researchers exposed the bacterium to increasing levels of arsenic. As the arsenic level rose, the bacterium was able to not just metabolise it but actually substitute it instead of phosporous. That's the new finding being reported, and of course, is very significant.
However, the bacterium fared best in a phosphorus environment, and in that setting used phosphorus in its chemical make-up (like other life) not arsenic.
If its preferred "set-up" is phosphorus, it's reasonable to suppose that that is the environment it originally evolved in, and the ability to incorporate arsenic is an extremophile evolutionary adaptation rather than a truly separate branch of life.
So, yes, it is a new lifeform. But it may simply be an unusual branch of our own evolutionary hierarchy rather than life whose evolutionary origin point was separate. So not quite proof of parallel life. It increases the odds that this can happen, but not evidence in and of itself.
You'd be more excited if they were wearing dandy pants.
This is the kind of stuff that really makes me angry that I'm mortal. I would love to live forever and see how this kind of stuff continues to evolve.
Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
Giant Arsenic Godzilla!
Or vice versa. Even if it is an adaptation-- and it would be a hell of an adaptation-- it still demonstrates that life can be more alien than we've previously seen. This is very exciting.
Is that really a surprise? Almost anyone can alter a Wikipedia entry. It is a shame that so many people rely on it for "facts".
And anyone can correct it, and usually do very quickly. That's the point. Individually it can be wildly inaccurate before being corrected, but when averaged out over tens of thousands of contributors, most of whom are dedicated to it being accurate, it's a damn good resource on par with some of the best encyclopedias according to peer-reviewed studies by the science journal 'Nature.' It also rigorously cites its sources, and cracks down when there's a lack of sourcing. Obviously, you should not take a single source of information as gospel on anything, but that applies to any source, including encyclopedias and scholarly books.
No, we haven't heard this before. Even the lifeforms found so far in the most extreme environments on Earth have required carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus as their building blocks. This discovery says that life can also rely on other than just those elements to survive, and changes the way NASA and other agencies and groups dedicated to finding life on other planets in our solar system and the galaxy will search for it. It also changes the way we'll search for life on Earth. Astrobiologists will probably have to go back through a lot of old data as a result of this too. It allows for a wider variety of planets and environments to possibly be habitable, and makes life much more adaptable than we previously thought.
Sure, it's not as glamorous as finding traces of life on another planet or moon, which is what I had hoped for when the announcement was first made as well, but it's still a very significant discovery if you actually read the article and think about it for a moment before having an ignorant knee-jerk response.
Ugh. Never mind.
Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
Or, at the very least, old lace.
[Too obscure?]
Its huge deal for the potential variety of life. Unfortunately lots of us are conditioned by SF to expect this sort of thing, so when something this big happens, people just kind of shrug.
RAMA
Arsenic Borg.
Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
Your ability to bring haberdashery into virtually any topic never ceases to amaze me. 
I, for one, welcome our new arsenic-based lifeform overlords.
Not at all. I giggled.
Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
Or, at the very least, old lace.
[Too obscure?]
Or, at the very least, old lace.Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
[Too obscure?]
It'll do for a mild chortle.
I enjoyed this story because it means silicon-based life is probably just waiting to be discovered!
Not at all. I giggled.Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
Or, at the very least, old lace.
[Too obscure?]
I'm glad someone appreciates my efforts to class up the comedy in this joint.
Or, at the very least, old lace.Call me when they develop the ability to wear silk handkerchiefs; that's civilisation.
[Too obscure?]
It'll do for a mild chortle.
Mary Poppins was a smelly pirate hooker.