NASA on extraterrestrial life

[Bill]

Epic Discovery: NASA Finds New Non-DNA Based Life Form -To Be Annouced at 2 pm EST

Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living on Earth in the ancient 800,000 year-old poisinous, arsenic waters of Mono Lake in California. This changes everything in the astrobiology of the Milky Way and beyond: The universe suddenly becomes alive with potential life forms in the trillions of possible planets in galaxies known and unknown.

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Human DNA building blocks are universal on Earth.

This alien bacteria appears to be completely different. Discovered in Mono Lake, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. Located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Mono Lake once covered a large part of Nevada and Utah, which would put it among the oldest lakes in North America. At its height during the last ice age, the lake may have been 900 feet deep. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.

No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. The world will know more today at 2pm EST.

[Darthwing Teorist]

I am no biologist and no chemist but the discovery is very interesting.
Theories are always adjusted even ones that seem to be very solid.

However, maybe the bacteria comes from Earth.


Heh, with all the polution around, no kidding that even the DNA gets totally modified.

PS: Star Wars and Star Trek got us used to the idea of beings based on different building blocks, especially silica instead of carbon.

[Bill]

O.K. It seems that scientists have trained a bacteria to get rid of its phosphorus and replace it with arsenic.

Scientists said Thursday that they had trained a bacterium to eat and grow on a diet of arsenic, in place of phosphorus — one of six elements considered essential for life — opening up the possibility that organisms could exist elsewhere in the universe or even here on Earth using biochemical powers we have not yet dared to dream about.

The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.

Scientists said the results, if confirmed, would expand the notion of what life could be and where it could be. “There is basic mystery, when you look at life,” said Dimitar Sasselov, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of an institute on the origins of life there, who was not involved in the work. “Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/scien ... ml?_r=1&hp

[Steve James]

“Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.”

Yeah, that's the significance. Remember that Star Trek episode where miners ran into a life form that was based on silicon, not carbon (which is just above on the periodic table)? What changes is the way we look for "life" and where we look for it. For example, the type of environments that would kill "us" (who use phosphorus) would be great for an arsenic-based life form.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Soon they will modify the TSA agents to be made of silicon and arsenic. Joke aside, I am sure that they will try the same thing with multicellular organisms working their way up to Gitmo patrons. If one can keep one's consciousness while having the very basis of the body modified, imagine the possibilities: colonization of other planets without terraforming, etc. OTOH, it may not be the smartest move: aerobic life once replaced anaerobic life here on Earth so we may open the gates to something similar.

2012?

[Josealb]

Im already seeing it...They're gonna send a mini shuttle with arsenical life to an arsenical planet, and its gonna strive, change, better itself, reproduce....and then invent iphones.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Awesome! We are one step closer to outsourcing all of earths labour to the Jovian moon of Ganymede, where forever and ever and from now on, our shoes and electronic masturbation devices will be manufactured!

Also, toilet paper from Titan will be a collector's item!

[PatrickH]

"that Star Trek episode"
that was the one with the classic McCoy line, "I'm a doctor, Jim, not a bricklayer!"

[Bär]

Where can I purchase this Ganymedian electronic masturbation device?

[Interloper]

"that Star Trek episode"
that was the one with the classic McCoy line, "I'm a doctor, Jim, not a bricklayer!"

It was "Devil in the Dark," starring the Horta, which was constructed of, I think, latex and a bunch of leftover props from the Paramount storage room.

About the bacteria: "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it." Its adaptability is in keeping with what allowed the earliest life forms, which were bacterial, to gradually evolve and adapt as the atmosphere changed over from one of methane and CO2, to one in which another poisonous gas -- oxygen -- got integrated into organismal metabolism and eventually became a requirement for life for most species on Earth. If the primordial bacteria hadn't been able to make such a shift, we wouldn't be here today, nor would those arsenic beasties in Mono Lake.

[Doc Stier]

Mono Lake Research Area

[klonk]

If they can show arsenic has displaced phosphorus in essential processes, we have a story here. But they're hedging on that point.

What they have proven beyond peradventure of a doubt is some germs can put up with a lot of crap.

I was hoping for more breakthrough, quite honestly.

[dragonprawn]

I heard that Chuck Norris's DNA is made of arsenic.

[Steve James]

If they can show arsenic has displaced phosphorus in essential processes, we have a story here. But they're hedging on that point.

What the experiment showed was that arsenic could replace phosphorus as a key component of what in us would be DNA. I.e., "life" (i.e., organic molecules --which are all based on DNA) was thought to require 6 elements; one of which is phosphorus. I.e., nothing had been found that did not follow that pattern. So, it was presumed that "all" life (based on DNA) would be based on the same 6 elements. Arsenic isn't/wasn't one of them. In fact, arsenic was/is toxic to most forms of life (eg. in old rat poison). This particular scientist hypothesized that the reason arsenic was so toxic was because it was almost identical (atomically) to phosphorus. It worked as a poison because the body tried to use it, thinking it was phosphorus. (Actually, this experiment may also be useful in the treatment/prevention of poisoning). Anyway, the scientist provided an environment where everything (necessary for the presence of life) was present except phosphorus, but also with a high concentration of arsenic. (Yes, this experiment could be done with other elements, too). It turns out that there was an organism (bacteria) that produced "DNA" that used arsenic. That was supposed to be impossible. If it's found that this can be done with any chemical, that would be extraordinarily significant. However, the fact is that this was the first instance of a living organism that doesn't have our DNA. Maybe there are others, elsewhere.

[qiphlow]

I heard that Chuck Norris's DNA is made of arsenic.

wrong. chuck norris allows arsenic to exist in his DNA...
...for now.