NASA Finds New (form of) Life

[Ian David]

Source: Gizmodo

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 in planet Earth. This changes everything.

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. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. 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. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology. I don't know about you but I've not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. And that's without counting yesterday's announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor trillion of Earths.

Read more: http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

---

See prior thread:

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x73677

[mainer]

1. rats, I wanted it to be on another planet

but this is pretty cool nonetheless

[slackmaster]

3. Mono Lake looks like it could be on another planet

[midnight]

7. What are those forms made of?

[slackmaster]

10. Mostly calcium carbonate

It's been drying up for a long, long time. The tufa were exposed when people started exploiting the water sources that feed the lake.

[somone]

13. Calcium carbonate

aka limestone

[liberation]

62. And apparently, the DNA is based on arsenic...

... DNA using a metalloid is fascinating.

[happygoluckytoyou]

185. EVOLUTION (the movie) QUICK GET THE HEAD AND SHOULDERS

The aliens are supposedly nitrogen-based, making them vulnerable to selenium in the same way humans are vulnerable to arsenic because we're carbon-based. However, nitrogen atoms don't have the valence real estate to form the long molecular chains critical to the DNA structure shared by terrestrial and alien life (when Ira first analyzes the sample, he finds DNA with 10 base pairs).

[truedelphi]

227. My spouse's joke on the cyanide-based life forms -

These should be called "Beck-teria."

[Xithras]

84. I've been swiming there!

The "poisonous Mono Lake" reference in the OP is a bit of hyperbole. Lots of people swim in the lake (on the South Shore, to avoid the Mono Muck), because it's one of only a handful of bodies of water in the world that you can't drown in. It's one of the most buoyant water bodies anywhere. If you can keep yourself rolled onto your back, it's possible for even the most out of shape swimmer (or non swimmer) to swim all the way across it's 4 mile width. The chemicals (mostly epsom salts and baking soda) are also good for the skin!

I had no idea that I was swimming with "aliens" though! :woohoo:

[CubicleGuy]

136. When was the last time...

... you checked yourself to make sure you're not a pod-person?

[Loudmxr]

205. Yes! I have been there too! I couldn't imagine a normal life form coming out of there.

I guess I was right.

BTW I ruined a really nice pair of shoes because I didn't know that the white stuff around the lake was not solid and I sank right into the muck. It was just the start of a very unpleasant vacation with the ex. That eventually turned out very pleasant once we hit New Mexico. The Land Of Enchantment. I wish I could find that motel in Taos again... that was one weird place. In a good way.

[Xithras]

223. LOL! There's a shoreline area on Mono called Sneaker Beach.

Were you near the old marina, by chance? Sneaker Beach got its name from the vast number of tourist shoes that are left in the mud there. It's deep, squishy, and the mineral shell reforms in HOURS...hiding the fact that it's so soft. It's my understanding that "Mono Muck" is actually the official name for the soft, mineral rich mud lining much of the lake.

There are a few spots, including much of the south shore, where the Muck doesn't exist though. The ground is more solid and the flies aren't quite as heavy on the south shore, so that's where most people go when they really want to swim. Even better, the tufa formations on the south side of the lake are in far better condition because they don't have as many tourists climbing all over them. There are also some awesome cinder cones at that end of the lake.

[DeadEyeDyck]

222. Got kin?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

90. ROCK PEOPLE!1!1!1!

[Deep13]

98. It's surprising to realize how "alien" the Earth really is.

Volcanoes, salt lakes, undersea vents, hypoxic mountains, caves full of poisonous gases and corrosive liquids, vast deserts and the fact that most of the surface is covered in salt water. If an alien dropped out of the sky onto Mt. Everest or the Saraha, he would be forgiven for thinking the planet was barren. Likewise if said alien landed any time before about 400 million years ago, there would not be any obvious life anywhere.

[AnArmyVeteran]

107. That photo is breathtaking!!!

[JuniperLea]

111. Tufa!

Love Mono Lake... Lee Vining... Bishop... Bodie!

[reggie the dog]

149. i stopped to get high by that lake and did not know at all

what it was like, we were driving from chicago to san jose and taking the back roads all the way, just when we got out of the desert on the bottom of the mountain from yosemite we saw blue about two miles off the blacktop and hit the gravel road down to the bottom, there were clouds of little flys of some sort that made a black ring around the lake. strange smelling too... perhaps i should not have put my toes in??? if i understand it was already a bit saltier than the sea before the streams were diverted back in 41..... cool place to burn a joint though ....

[Dumpster Macaine]

203. Life

It's a remarkable coincidence that, on the same day NASA discovers an astonishing new basic form of life, WikiLeaks offers us a transparent alternative to our own. ..A great day

[Botany]

2. Just what does this have to do w/ cats?

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Ian David.

[Jim__]

5. Does this imply that life evolved at least twice on earth?

Or, could this be the result of a mutation in a very primitive life form?

[NickB79]

11. Or some life arrived via panspermia

Are we the natives, or the aliens?

[Ian David]

18. Could be either one. We'll see at 2 PM what NASA's theory is.

And I, for one, welcome our new, arsenic-based overlords.

[obxhead]

34. They can't possibly screw it up any worse than we have.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

85. HAAA!!

*snort*



this is SO cool!

[niceypoo]

22. More likely an adaptation

To a poison environment.

[montanto]

35. Not saying that's wrong, because I'm not smart enough, but

how would something "adapt" at the elemental level of DNA?

[TheEuclideanOne]

78. It won't be the first time. Expect to see new life forms in the Gulf soon

with a DNA based on dispersants.

[GOTV]

92. Well, we're talking about bacteria ...

... so with each creature there is only a single copy of the dna to modify.


When a cell is dividing the dna splits down the middle and each half reconstitutes itself by rebuilding the missing half from the available atoms near by with the help of some protiens.

Arsenic is in the same column as Phosphorous on the periodic table which means it is chemically similar to it should be able to stand-in for Phosphorous in some molecules. In an environment so rich in arsenic it is possible to imagine that sometimes when a bacteria divides the new halves rebuild themselves using some Arsenic atoms to fit into the holes meant for Phosphorous atoms.

If Arsenic is much more prevalent in the environment than Phosphorous a bacteria that develops a dependence on it over Phosphorous has an advantage.


And actually, now that I think of it, all adaptation occurs at the DNA level.

[montanto]

121. Ok, I can see how all adaptation happens at the DNA level

but obviously not all adaptation to DNA happens at the elemental level--which was part of my first post. Your explanation of the possibility of As replacement of P through chemical/atomic similarity helps me though understand though. thanks

[AlbertCat]

148. And actually, now that I think of it, all adaptation occurs at the DNA level.

Indeed.

Isn't DNA probably an adaptation of RNA in the 1st place?



This discovery gives me the same feeling I had when they discovered all those life forms around thermal vents on the ocean floor. Yes. life is rare and precious, but on this planet at least, doncha get the feeling it's the rule, and not the exception to the rule? It's had over 3 billion years to crop up anywhere it can get even the slightest hold.

[muriel_volestrangler]

105. NASA says they think it's an adaption

The researchers began to grow the bacteria in a laboratory on a diet of increasing levels of arsenic, finding to their surprise that the microbes eventually fully took up the element, even incorporating it into the phosphate groups that cling to the bacteria's DNA.

Notably, the research found that the bacteria thrived best in a phosphorus environment.

That probably means that the bacteria, while a striking first for science, are not a sign of a "second genesis" of life on Earth, adapted specifically to work best with arsenic in place of phosphorus.
...
"This is just a weird branch on the known tree of life," said Professor Davies. "We're interested ultimately in finding a different tree of life... that will be the thing that will have massive implications in the search for life in the Universe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11886943

[northernlights]

173. successful mutation

DNA replicates itself bazillions of times over. The DNA proofreaders, spellcheckers and grammarcheckers make mistakes too, sometimes. A wrong chemical slips into an amino acid and gets skipped over, a wrong amino acid slips into the dna and gets skipped over.

Most mistakes are benign -- neither helpful nor harmful (eg, 6-toed cats). Some mistakes are harmful and lead to disease.

And some mistakes are extremely successful and improve the survival rate of the progeny. In this case, arsenic replaced something in an amino acid and enhanced the survival of that particular bacteria.

[Thor_MN]

211. We could use the "E" word and piss off the conservatives....

EVOLUTION!!!!

[niceypoo]

233. By mutating

That is how evolution works. Our DNA is constantly mutating. Most mutations are not helpful and are weeded out by natural selection. Other mutations are beneficial and help said organism to survive changes in the environment. It is these, 'good,' mutations that persist.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

36. not simple adaption...

that's nothing new. It's proof that all living forms don't have to have the same building blocks that earth based life does.
It's big!
:bounce:

[Yavin4]

75. I've Always Thought That Our Definition of Life Was Ethnocentric

If something didn't have the exact same building blocks as life on earth then it was not considered life.

[ananda]

103. I seem to remember an episode of Star Trek...

... about a life form based on silicon.

That really got me thinking.

And now this.

[eppur_se_muova]

150. The similarity between P and As is much greater than the similarity between C and Si.

N and C are second-row elements, and behave very differently from third-row and heavier elements, such as P and Si (2nd row) or As and Ge (3rd row). Most P in nature occurs as phosphate, PO₄^-3; there is no corresponding NO₄^-3, but As and Sb do form analogs with parallel chemistry. The single biggest difference is that C,N, and O form relatively strong "pi" bonds, and hence strong double bonds. Thid-row and heavier elements form double bonds which are much weaker than two single bonds, so they tend to form single bonds rather than double (some exceptions). Nitrogen occurs as N₂ with one triple bond, but phosphorous forms P₄ with four single bonds. Likewise, CO₂ has two double bonds, and exists as separate molecules readily forming a gas at normal temperature, while SiO₂ forms all single bonds, which it can only do by forming a molecular crystal (silica/quartz).

Basically, As is larger than P, and holds onto electrons less strongly, so it can function as a "big phosphorous". It's worth noting that most organisms fed arsenate incorporate As in place of P in such energy-storage molecules as ATP -- the problem is, the As analogs react much more rapidly with water (because there's more room around the larger As atom), so As-ATP is usually hydrolyzed rapidly back to arsenate and the organism basically starves to death as arsenate catalytically depletes its energy sources. Perhaps because DNA is held together by interbase H-bonds, As-DNA is less prone to hydrolysis than As-ATP etc., so shuttling the As into the DNA is just a way of protecting ATP etc., thus enabling the organism to survive.

Selenomethionine occurs relatively rarely in Nature, but can be incorporated into proteins just as (sulfur-based) methionine can, simply by providing a diet in which methionine has been replace by selenomethionine. This is done routinely to produce Se-tagged proteins for X-ray crystallography.

Personally, I think this announcement is overblown. This sounds like a surprising case of adaptation, not unthinkably so, however. Certainly not something demanding a "separate Creation".

[Duer 157099]

174. Fascinating.

Do you suppose the As-DNA is structually similar, then, to P-DNA? And, do you suppose their RNA is also As-RNA?

I can't imagine that "shuttling the As into the DNA is just a way of protecting ATP" is really what is going on here. That would suppose that there is very limited As, not a premise upon which I would design an essential nucleic acid.

No, there's something else going on here. I think it's fascinating.

[eppur_se_muova]

186. Extremely similar. As for RNA -- not necessarily, but if it is, it is.

I'd be skeptical that As-RNA could hold together as well. RNA has so many single-stranded portions that I doubt it is as stable relative to hydrolysis products as DNA, though I can't begin to estimate how big the difference might be.

[Duer 157099]

195. BTW, I just noticed that they are also saying that the ATP uses As instead too

So, apparently it uses ATA. And as you noted, ATA is chemically less stable than ATP, so this organism must have undergone some other adaptive changes relative to energy use.

The article mentions that they grew the organism in increasing phosphorus concentrations and it apparently can substitute phosphorus back instead of arsenic. Seems like it can use either one, depending on the environment. But it prefers phosphorus.

edit: oops! and upon reading even further, I found that actually what they did was to FORCE the organism to use arsenic, not the other way around. Apparently, in the lab, they subsituted the phosphorus in the growth media with arsenic, and discovered that the bacterium could survive. DOH! I, and I think many others, thought that they found an organism that is natively using arsenic. Well, maybe it does. I dunno, I sure would rather read the original paper than the dumbed-down synopses that the press gives us instead.

[yawnmaster]

165. NO KILL I

I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.

[wakemewhenitsover]

214. lol!

:thumbsup:

[gaijinlaw]

232. gaijinlaw

So we've been lookin' for life in all the wrong places... </johnnylee>

[AlbertCat]

154. same building blocks that earth based life does.

Uh... this bacteria IS an Earth based life form.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

220. I read that again later...

when it was too late to edit. lol

[kestrel91316]

45. No "adaptation" of an existing normal earth life form could cause this to develop.

The microbiologist in me thinks it evolved separately from other life forms on earth. Of course it could have seeded from elsewhere and can only survive in Mono Lake......

[quakerboy]

228. I think your inner microbiologist

is wrong. Reading the articles about this (not the op's, which was early and relatively low on actual factual content), it turns out it is no new organism, but a form of bacteria we already knew about. All we discovered was a new survival mechanism in that already familiar bacteria, that of being able to use Arsenic in place of the P that it normally uses. In a DNA structure just like every other critter on this rock.

On edit, it seems more like a house builder learning to use baked mud bricks instead of cement blocks than like an alchemist changing lead into gold.

[caseymoz]

64. Hardly, if it's made of arsenic.

And if phosphorus is not even in its DNA. This is a completely, separate development of life that does not share a common ancestor to anything else on earth. It's common "ancestor" to us and any other known living thing would be rock or mud, not anything that reproduced consumed and reproduced.

[struggle4progress]

33. Probably pointless to speculate until we know what NASA is actually announcing:

and I'm not informed enough about chemistry to know whether As could actually substitute for P in the DNA double-helix

But I used to live and hike in arid California not so far from Mono Lake, and the hydrogeology there is complex. One has both drinkable springs and poisonous ones -- and arsenic waters are not terribly uncommon. So it seems to me that there might be a plausible evolutionary route for bacteria there with some As substituting for P -- namely, if one had an arsenic-water input into a sufficiently normal lake, a mutation allowing bacteria to use As instead of P for some purposes might allow a bacterium to colonize otherwise under-used waters

It's worth noting that the original Mono Lake ecosystem essentially disappeared as the lake was drained by regional and trans-regional human water-withdrawals in the last century, and bacteria adapted to poison-springs might have survived better as the lake was drained

[JackRiddler]

59. Life certainly evolved many times on Earth. Odds are it's evolving in cans of soup right now.

But soon as the poor little proto-critters that might form in that soup put themselves together, they are gobbled right up by the older critters who got their head start 4 billion years ago.

Anyway, if you remember hearing about the old Miller-Urey experiment from high school, it suggests that (especially given the timescales!) life probably started in many places on Earth before the first colonies of it spread around enough to run into each other (and eat each other) and it all started turning into a single biosphere.

[struggle4progress]

116. link to NASA article

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html

[Jim__]

142. Thanks for the link - it clears it up - n/t

[backtomn]

125. It could mean that it evolved under those extreme conditions.

Where one of the 6 key elements (like sulfur) was not available. This might be possible to do this scientifically......but not naturally.....until today.

[Poll_Blind]

6. I want to buy arsenic sea monkeys for my kids this Christmas. Will I be able to?

Seriously though, that's a cool finding. I thought it was going to be lame.

PB

[Jamastiene]

54. Unless we have gotten around to reversing Bush's crappy water

policies, it is possible that you can just get a glass of water and tell the kids there are arsenic sea monkeys in there. I mean, there is plenty of arsenic allowed in our drinking water and it is probably about as visible as the baby sea monkeys were.

I had some of those brine shrimp/sea monkeys growing up. They were hard to see as babies. It wasn't until they became "grandpas" that you could see them all that great. The kids won't know the difference. :P

[backtomn]

127. Only in New Jersey. ; )

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[tavalon]

16. No, I don't think it has anything to do with it.

OTOH, I could be overestimating the intelligence of the average American or underestimating the intelligence of this administration. I've been known to do both at times.

Welcome to DU, BTW.

[MineralMan]

24. Thread hijacking attempt - FAIL!

[Name removed]

109. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[texastoast]

140. Dammit, what did I miss?

Too busy this morning to log on.

[Warren DeMontague]

143. NASA discovered Trolls on Uranus.

:thumbsup:

[texastoast]

144. Apparently, this thread attracted them like a homing instinct

Ah, the science bashers and the "Earth is 6000 years old types." Sorry I missed it.

[Warren DeMontague]

145. Some people get really, really angry when confronted with new or interesting data

and science, in particular, seems to set them off.

It's weird, it is.

[Jefferson23]

9. WOW! n/t

[sellitman]

12. So this is where Republicans come from!

That explains everything.

:think:

[Lucinda]

15. LOL

:toast:

and a few ex's!

[backtomn]

132. No.....this is SCIENCE-based

[caseymoz]

155. Yes, toxic. Made of arsenic. nt

[BlueMTexpat]

226. Poison-based, to be sure. nt

[drm604]

14. K&R

Very exciting finding!

[Roland99]

17. AWESOME!

[Ian David]

19. See also: NASA find new lifeform: arsenic microbe widens likelihood of extraterrestrial life

NASA find new lifeform: arsenic microbe widens likelihood of extraterrestrial life

NASA’s curiously worded press release earlier this week about an event later today prompted speculation that the space agency had discovered extraterrestrial life; going by a leak ahead of conference, it’s actually something about as alien as you can get from physiology as we know it, only on this very planet. According to NOS, NASA has found a new type of bacteria in Mono Lake, California, which lives with levels of arsenic in its biology that were hitherto believed impossible.



That alone is enough to make it significantly different from all life we’ve encountered to date – human, animal, plant or microbial – which regularly consists of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur but to which arsenic is deadly. It’s unclear whether NASA will announce that this new bacteria swaps out the phosphorus in its DNA for arsenic, or merely utilizes the poison in some way.

More:
http://www.slashgear.com/nasa-find-new-lifeform-arsenic-microbe-widens-likelihood-of-extraterrestrial-life-02117300/


Nasa to unveil new life form: Bacteria that thrive on arsenic

Nasa is about to reveal a discovery that changes the way we think about life – both extraterrestrial and terrestrial. It's not the long-awaited announcement of alien life but is extraordinary nonetheless. We will give the full story when the embargo lifts at 7pm GMT and will analyse reaction to it over the coming days in this story tracker

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/02/nasa-life-form-bacteria-arsenic

NASA Announcement Leaked: NASA Arsenic Announcement Thursday Leaked
http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/12/02/nasa-announcement-leaked-nasa-arsenic-announcement-thursday-leaked/

[Frisbee]

20. I was ready to be disappointed...

but this didn't disappoint! This is way cool, and makes me wonder what else may lurk out there where we'd never even think to look because of our preconceptions. Maybe now that we have good reason to look outside the box, so to speak, even more unforeseen life forms will be found here at home, strengthening the argument that life (almost) certainly lives on other planets. Cool day to be alive, despite all the other BS going down in the world!

[Historic NY]

21. Arsenic & old lace.............humm

[MineralMan]

23. Defining what life is, based only on existing life on our planet,

has always been a mistake. I believe it has limited our search for other possibilities.

[zehnkatzen]

25. I, for one, welcome our new arsenic-based masters.

Someone was going to say it, ya'll.

[Frisbee]

26. There are some really awesome pictures of Mono Lake...

Looks like time for some new wallpaper!

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Mono Lake&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi#q=Mono+Lake&um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1,isz:l&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=icz3TLD4AsGa8QOY_rT5Cg&ved=0CDAQpwU">Mono Lake

Edited to update link.

[Lisa0825]

27. I have assumed this would happen since I was a bio student in college.

I never understood why people focused on finding life LIKE ours. It seemed to me that there would be some other unique formation of it.

[Ian David]

38. NO KILL I

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hL7HogamDVc/S0Uj2Z_3x8I/AAAAAAAABRU/VEvmn5bru3s/s400/spock+horta.jpg

[TZ]

61. Aww I was gonna post a Horta picture /reference!

Its about the first thing I thought of when I heard the news..lol...

[pattmarty]

28. What did they find, a conservative with an actual working brain?

[get the red out]

30. We shouldn't confuse fantasy with reality

We're talking about science, a conservative with a working brain has always been proven to be impossible.

[groundloop]

31. Don't get your hopes up, some things just aren't possible no matter what

[OnyxCollie]

29. I've been to Mono Lake.

It's very cool.

The flying bugs are pretty intense, though.

My girlfriend got all freaked out by them and stayed in the car.

[postulater]

32. Can't wait to hear Bill Nye on this!

Bill!

Bill!

Bill!

Bill Nye!

[LongTomH]

176. OK, Here's Bill!!!!

Here's Bill Nye at the Planetary Society blog: Arsenic and Deep Space?

If you or I ingest arsenic, well... it doesn't go so well. If you are, on the other hand, a certain species of bacterium from Mono Lake, California, ingesting this seemingly toxic metal is simple enough. You would have a way to use arsenic in the place of phosphorus -- not just in some chemical reactions, but in your very DNA, the instructions for living. Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow, and her colleagues have found that a bacterium from the Halomonadace ae family of proteobacteria is able to completely swap arsenic for phosphorus.

More here: http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002796/

[Soylent Brice]

37. K&R

[FailureToCommunicate]

39. A more glorious dawn awaits! (link)

Billions and billions, oh my!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&feature=fvsr


(thanks for the news, Gizmodo.)

[MilesColtrane]

40. Maybe we can enslave them and train them to manufacture our...

semiconductors.

[Jamastiene]

48. Maybe we can find a way to reverse some of the effects of Bush's

crappy policies on clean water. Remember back then when he allowed more arsenic in the water? What if these...er....beings can eat/absorb/bind with the arsenic and clean up the water? :think:

A girl can dream, can't she?

[Baclava]

41. So WE are the aliens, this isn't our planet

I knew it.

[Jamastiene]

50. Ruh roh, what if the little arsenic creatures demand we leave, then

shoot death rays at us? How will we defend against that? :wow:

[Baclava]

67. Purity control! WE must wipe out these arsenic-based lifeforms before they take control!

A billion years from now I bet the Arsenicians will want our females for their hybrid experiments too.

[AlbertCat]

160. WE must wipe out these arsenic-based lifeforms before they take control!

Well, their children certainly shouldn't just be made US citizens! Do they have the right papers?

[Baclava]

198. Don't make me paranoid

People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time.

All day long I think of things, but nothing seems to satisfy.

edit


Can you help me?

[pokercat999]

139. I'm sure our congress people are already working closely

with the lobbyists from Raytheon, Boeing and several others to work out the bribes for contracts. Have no fear NASA has figured out a way to insure it's continuation by ingratiating it's self to the corporate powers that be by finding a new source of fear driven defense spending.

[msanthrope]

130. You watched Battlestar Galactica redux, too? n/t

[Baclava]

189. I firmly believe the whole 'Alien' movie series was a CIA plot to desensitize us to our true past

We are the infected quarantine planet where all the rabid species go.

Personally, I think the overlords just want our wimmin'.

A tip, look out for the swans





oops, I've got mail



perhaps I've said too much

[blondeatlast]

42. Awesone! Can't wait to hear more! nt

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[InvisibleTouch]

44. Science-fiction has long predicted something like this....

...life-forms using different elemental building blocks from the ones we assume are universal and irreplaceable. The classic example being, of course, the Horta on Star Trek, who used silica in place of carbon (as I recall my undergraduate chemistry, those elements are in the same column on the periodic table, making it not entirely improbable that one could substitute for the other). Once again, visionary "fiction" writers have been ahead of the curve!

[liberation]

68. It's easy to be "ahead of the curve" when you don't have to prove anything

Damned science and the burden of proof slowing it down! ;-)

[eppur_se_muova]

151. Only because they don't really understand the chemistry. See my post #169 above.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4638937&mesg_id=4639439

BTW, I am a lifelong SF fan, I just happen to be a chemist too. :)

[NeoGreen]

46. I see a number of possibilities...

(admittedly before reading the article)

1) Non-Arsenic DNA is indigenous to Earth and the As-DNA is independently derived and Extra-terrestrial
(huge implications for the Drake Equation)

2) Both Non-Arsenic DNA and As-DNA are indigenous to Earth and are independently derived
(huge implications for the Drake Equation, and possible implications for theology)

3) Both Non-Arsenic DNA and As-DNA are non-indigenous to Earth and are independently derived
(huge implications for the Drake Equation, and possible implications for theology)

4) As-DNA is indigenous to Earth and the non Arsenic-DNA is independently derived and Extra-terrestrial
(huge implications for the Drake Equation and theology)

5) Either the non Arsenic DNA or the As-DNA are derived from the other and either are originally indigenous or Extra-terrestrial
(implications all the way around)

[Joe Chi Minh]

197. (... and possible implications for theology) Now! Now! Don't upset our "naive realist" friends...

Just raising that possibility is enough to give some of them vapours. Smelling salts! Quickly!

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Turbineguy]

49. Maybe this is the key

to understanding Republicans. Arsenic being a poison and all.

[Tikki]

161. Not too many repugs* in California, though...

*(see recent election results)



Tikki

[Democat]

51. I was hoping they found Obama's spine on another planet

and they were rushing it back to Earth.

[emilyg]

104. So was I. LOL

[backtomn]

131. Is there any thread that won't elicit this type of comment?? : )

I appreciate the levity, but he an American citizen....sorry, couldn't help it.

[colorado_ufo]

52. All we need to do is open our minds

and set aside our arrogance. Earth life, as we have known it, may not be the "gold standard" that we have held it to be as the basis for all life in the universe.

[perdita9]

53. I'm not sure this qualifies as a new life form.

DNA is made up of two sugar phosphate backbones with 4 nitrogenous bases in between which spell out the code. If the organism is organizing its proteins the same way then the only thing that has changed is swapping out the arsenic for the phosphate in the backbone of the DNA. That implies an adaptation, not a completely new form of life.

[NeoGreen]

56. To make a determination either way...

would it matter if there was evidence that the As-DNA was indigenous or extra-terrestrial (presumably independently derived)?

[liberation]

73. how many other life forms are you aware that use metalloids instead of phosphate for their DNA ?

?

[NeoGreen]

166. None...

and as I understand it this is the first time we have evidence of the case.

I asked my question above to see if the origin and not the chemistry would make the difference in his definition of 'new life form'.

Just askin' to be curious, not to be a jerk (then or now).

Apologies if my post struck an improper 'tone'.

[Duer 157099]

193. I suppose it will depend on whether the code is the same

and if As is substituted in the RNA molecule and it affects the stability (as a poster above noted) then we might suppose that it is conceivable that the code will vary.

If the code is different, would that qualify as a different life form? :shrug:

[Doc_Technical]

55. "It's life Jim, but not as we know it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE

[Greyhound]

57. Wow. Once again we learn that we don't know nearly as much as we like to pretend we do.

:kick: & R

[Joe Chi Minh]

199. Steady, there...

[caseymoz]

58. I think it isn't "bacteria."

They're just calling it that because they don't know what to call it yet. Hopefully, that name doesn't stick.

Or maybe the word bacteria is like "bug." Not really an insect but any tiny crawly living thing, probably an insect.

[Ticonderoga]

60. In the grand scheme of things,

who cares what NASA discovers. They should be the first to be defunded. We need to save our country and it's people first.

[TZ]

63. Hey I see the anti-science brigade has checked in!

Yeah, who needs that larnin stuff and discovery. I mean clearly its a sin agaisnt god right? Aye carumba. Save this shit for the Palinista crowd.

[Ian David]

74. I thought The Amish didn't use the internets. n/t

[Deep13]

89. Gawd did it. That's allz I needs tah know.

:hi:

[Warren DeMontague]

113. Knowledge and new information scare and upset me.

Not to mention, piss me off.

[eyepaddle]

69. That was the most concentrated pointlessness so far in this thread.

And you have some stiff competition.

[Ian David]

72. Yet you'll still use a microcomputer, the internet, GPS satellites...

...

Why don't you go become Amish?

[liberation]

76. Damn right, and they should keep the government off your medicare too!

Damn scientist wasting our precious hard earned moneys, what have they ever done for us?

[Deep13]

87. BOOOO!! nt

[14thColony]

93. Yes, and to hell with all those spin-off technologies they've contributed to

Like super conductors, high-speed computers, lasers, advanced rocket motors, advanced supersonic/hypersonic flight, cordless power tools, advanced battery technology, smoke detectors, home water filtration systems, aluminum-based insulation, medical body imaging technology, advanced prosthetic limb, infrared thermometers, chromosomal analysis software, digital mammography, satellite communications, aircraft collision avoidance systems...

What a bunch of star-gazing freeloaders!

I'm with you buddy, let's save a few million dollars and let OTHER countries corner the market on the next wave of advanced technology. That'll show NASA...

[LanternWaste]

101. I don't believe it's a zero-sum equation...

"We need to save our country and it's people first..."

I don't believe it's a zero-sum equation. I imagine we may attempt one while still attempting the other-- neither being fundamentally predicated on the other.


I'd imagine that in the Grand Scheme of things, our country holds little more importance than the rise and fall of dozens of other empires throughout the rather small time-frame of human history. :shrug:

[Warren DeMontague]

112. Yes, science and knolwedge never did anything to help people.

Back to the caves and yurts with ye!

[Zebedeo]

126. I use my knolwedge

any time my tee shot gets stuck behind a knoll. ;)

[MilesColtrane]

129. Defund NASA?

OK, but don't come whining to the guys in lab coats to save our country and it's people when...

[sofa king]

190. "Let's burn the observatory so this'll never happen again."

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Springfield_Observatory

Just the idea that life can be so versatile is going to change everything. Everywhere we looked for life before, we may wish to check again. And previous anomalous readings, like that of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_biological_experiments">Labeled Release experiment on one of the Vikings, may have to be reconsidered.

And, of course, we're going to have to consider whether or not early visits to other places have already introduced invasive biology.

[Dappleganger]

138. And we shall save this planet with ignorance leading the way!

:rofl:

[texastoast]

146. Did you ever think about how many people NASA employs

And how many advances we have made as a country and for ITS people because of NASA?


And NASA employs people from private industry. That should make the teabaggers really happy.

Want to raise the retirement age too?

[Crunchy Frog]

159. Learning new things about the universe is teh evul.

If I can have my beer and chips and big screen TV, what else really matters?

[Codeine]

163. The rest of us aren't afraid of science. nt

[AlbertCat]

164. who cares what NASA discovers

I dunno.... everyone who breathes?


I know, to save our country and its people, let's tax the churches and businesses owned by the churches and give that money to science.... which saves us every day.


(boy! did you completely miss the "grand scheme of things"...whoosh! right over your pointed little head!)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

187. yeah and trying to save the country without science. is like wanting to protect feet

but refusing to wear shoes.

dumb

[dbmk]

201. To what purpose?

Whats the point of preserving life if its not to push forward in our search for knowledge and beauty?

Science and art are the _last_ things that should be defunded.

[ElboRuum]

218. Drive by anti-NASA post. Do I have to say it? Yeah I do. FAIL.

[ElboRuum]

219. Self-delete... More fail. See what you started?!??!

[rosenthal]

65. I often hear, "X planet can't have no life because there's no water in it"

But what if the living beings in that planets do not need water, like we do? I don't know why we always assume everyone else has to be similar to us.

[Ian David]

71. There are other solvents besides water.

I think Larry Niven (or Arthur C. Clarke) even suggested life forms based on liquid Helium, although that one's a pretty big stretch.

[eppur_se_muova]

156. Ammonia is the favorite alternative. Very abundant on Jovians and near-Jovians.

A mixture of ammonia and water might be a possibility, as in Hal Clement's novel "Fossil".

Clement also wrote a novel ("Close to Critical") in which the atmosphere was a mixture of water and sulfuric acid near the critical point, and one in which the atmosphere was gaseous sulfur (it wasn't Io). :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Clement

[liberation]

80. Not really, what you may have heard is that Planet X may have life becasue there is water in it.

Or that Planet Y may be candidate to host life in it because it is within the so-called "habitable zone" (a distance from a start in which the surface of the planet is neither too cold nor too hot, just like our planet). Mostly because we only know life on earth, and thus that is what our knowledge is limited (you can't search for things that you don't know, or that your models do not predict, or you can not observe). Mostly because trying to prove a negative is generally not a good idea...

[and-justice-for-all]

66. Life does not have to consist of the componets that Earth based

life is made of, other planets will not have the same conditions or elements as Earth does. It is just naive to think that life in the cosmos can only exist with OUR chemical make-up.

[dbmk]

202. Naive?

Not much reason to believe otherwise until now. And anyway you would probably not find many scientists disagreeing that was possible or even likely. Somehere out there.

But until now that has been pure speculation. There was no real scientific reasoning behind assuming that other building blocks would work.

Even so, as far as I understood some the NASA scientists, there were some properties to this new "structure" that imposed some limitations on the viability of it. That it needed a decidedly special environment in order to form. And not of the kind that would lead to any kind of life beyond the bacterial level.
And thats with something that is still relatively close to our chemical make-up.

Someone correct me if I heard something that was not said. :)

But that fact that it is possible at all is groundbreaking. Or wallbreaking is probably a better term.

[and-justice-for-all]

209. Yes, naive...nt

[dbmk]

230. Why?

[Turborama]

70. K&R It would be nice if we lived in a world where this kind of breakthrough...

...got the same amount of coverage as the death of a celebrity. But we don't, so it won't.

[Frisbee]

118. CNN didn't even do one of their breaking news emails...

of course had Britney been in an accident, or the octomom become preggers agin, THAT would be news.

[jberryhill]

213. Can this life form win Dancing With The Stars?

[suffragette]

77. Interesting article on this with link to scientist's website

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57851/

http://www.ironlisa.com/


Felisa taking samples from a sediment core she pulled up from the remote shores of 10 Mile Beach at Mono Lake in California.
(photo credit: © 2010 Henry Bortman)

[drm604]

94. Interesting.

That article from The Scientist makes it sound like this is an adaptation rather than something separately evolved.

[suffragette]

117. Have to admit I get lost at a certain point

in reading this.
But I do find it fascinating.

[mike_c]

210. that's what it is-- here is an excerpt from the original paper....

I can't provide a link because the paper was forwarded to me as a pdf, but I've excerpted part below and it's easy to search for the original online (but it won't be free at this point except for Science subscribers-- and you can bet that download line is HOT today).

Here's the citation: Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Jodi Switzer Blum, Thomas R. Kulp, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Shelley E. Hoeft,
Jennifer Pett-Ridge, John F. Stolz, Samuel M. Webb, Peter K. Weber, Paul C. W. Davies, Ariel D.
Anbar, Ronald S. Oremland. 2010. A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus. Science Express.

www.sciencexpress.org / 2 December 2010 / Page 1 / 10.1126/science.1197258

Here's the last two paragraphs of the (short) conclusion:

Our data show arsenic-dependent growth by GFAJ-1 (Fig. 1). Growth was accompanied by arsenate uptake and
assimilation into biomolecules including nucleic acids, proteins and metabolites (Table 1 and 2, Figs. 2 and 3). In some organisms, arsenic induces specific resistance genes to cope with its toxicity (7); while some dissimilatory arsenicutilizing microbes can conserve energy for growth from the oxidation of reduced arsenic species, or ”breathe" AsO4 3-, as a terminal electron acceptor (18). Our study differs because we used arsenic as a selective agent and excluded phosphorus, a major requirement in all hitherto known organisms. However, GFAJ-1 is not an obligate arsenophile and it grew considerably better when provided with P (Fig. 1A, B). Although AsO4 3- esters are predicted to be orders of magnitude less stable than PO4 3- esters, at least for simple molecules (8), GFAJ-1 can cope with this instability. The vacuole-like regions observed in GFAJ-1 cells when growing under +As/-P conditions are potentially poly-β- hydroxybutyrate rich which may stabilize As(V)-O-C type structures because non-aqueous environments appear to promote slower hydrolysis rates for related compounds (8). We propose that intracellular regions or mechanisms that exclude water may also promote this stability.

We report the discovery of an unusual microbe, strain GFAJ-1, that exceptionally can vary the elemental composition of its basic biomolecules by substituting As for P. How arsenic insinuates itself into the structure of biomolecules is unclear, and the mechanisms by which such molecules operate are unknown.

So it's NOT an obligate arsenophile-- this is pretty clearly an adaptation to a toxic environment. Leave it to bacteria-- and primitive bacteria at that-- to figure out how to do something like this!

[hunter]

102. This is Nobel Prize stuff.

:applause:

[Ian David]

79. Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

The first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life has been found.

<snip>

It also has implications for the way life arose on Earth - and how many times it may have done so.

<snip>

For example, astrobiologists have suggested that instead of the ubiquitous water that makes up so much of life, extraterrestrial life might just as likely run on ammonia.

<snip>

"If we can find a 'second genesis' on our planet, obviously separate from our own evolution, you could then extrapolate that life can generate multiple times - that it's not a one-off phenomenon," he told BBC News.

<snip>

The researchers began to grow the bacteria in a laboratory on a diet of increasing levels of arsenic, finding to their surprise that the microbes eventually fully took up the element, even incorporating it into the phosphate groups that cling to the bacteria's DNA.

More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11886943

That last paragraph is key.

This bacteria apparently doesn't do the strange arsenic-DNA-trick in the wild-- it was coaxed into doing this in the laboratory.

Hat-tip to:
http://twitter.com/NoisyAstronomer/status/10396391914340352

[DontTreadOnMe]

81. Did Cheney ever visit Mono Lake?

Maybe something rubbed off... it would explain the arsenic connection.

[RedCloud]

82. When will NASA find intelligent life on this planet?

[Deep13]

91. Still looking.

:-(

[Deep13]

83. Holy fucking shit. Aliens, right here on Earth.

This is a big fucking deal. It is a form of life based on a chemistry that is different from everything else in the world. It really is like finding an alien species.

[Turborama]

86. BBC: Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life (with picture of the bacteria)

By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life has been found.

The bacterium, found in a California lake, uses the usually poisonous element arsenic in place of phosphorus.

The find, http://www.sciencemag.org">described in Science, gives weight to the long-standing idea that life on other planets may have a radically different chemical makeup.

It also has implications for the way life arose on Earth - and how many times it may have done so.

Lengthy article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11886943

[Avalux]

88. If NASA scientists present this new life form as "ET"...

then I would expect they've done the work to come to that conclusion, instead of the bacterium being merely an adaptation. I can't wait to hear the details.

[azurnoir]

95. Is this even new info?

I swear I heard about this a few months back

[Ian David]

96. Link for the online NASA Broadcast @ 2

Link for the online NASA Broadcast @ 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9673719&mesg_id=9673719

[yodermon]

97. Cool, but seriously overhyped.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/12/02/mono-lake-bacteria-build-their-dna-using-arsenic-and-no-this-isnt-about-aliens/

...
It’s an amazing result, but even here, there is room for doubt. As mentioned, Wolfe-Simon still found a smidgen of phosphorus in the bacteria by the end of the experiment. The levels were so low that the bacteria shouldn’t have been able to grow but it’s still not clear how important this phosphorus fraction is. Would the bacteria have genuinely been able to survive if there was no phosphorus at all?
...
These are questions for future research. In the mean time, the angle being used to sell the story is that this might have implications for alien life. Of course, the results have nothing to do with aliens. If anything, they expand the possibilities of what alien life might look like. If bacteria on Earth can exist using a biochemistry that’s very different to that of other microbes, it stands to reason that aliens could do the same.

That hasn’t stopped the hype machine from rolling forward, fuelled by a public announcement from NASA, teasing a press conference about an “astrobiology discovery”. It’s a shame. In teasing their own press conference two days ahead of time, and refusing to budge on the embargo when the first information trickled in, NASA effectively muzzled everyone who knew about the actual story while allowing speculation to build to fever pitch.

That may, of course, be their intention. However, I can’t help but feel that the result will be a lot of disappointed people, who’ve been robbed of an opportunity to be excited about a genuinely interesting discovery.

[eppur_se_muova]

153. Agreed. nt

[thereismore]

99. No common building blocks? I am pretty sure they use DNA just like any other fish. nt

[eyepaddle]

114. ?

Is this snark?

[thereismore]

119. No. P is in the same group with As, so I think they just substituted P for As, but

the rest of the chemistry is the same as everywhere else. Hardly revolutionary. A curiosity, yes.

[dbmk]

204. A curiosity more or less deemed impossible.

[Paper Roses]

100. News like this is always exciting to hear. We are too arrogant to

believe that we are all the 'life' that can exist. Just suppose a bacteria infested meteoroid landed in the lake and found a friendly environment in which to survive? That chunk of cosmic dust may have come from one of the trillions of other planets in the universe. Maybe it is billions of years old and will survive and evolve as we did.

It is all in the environment,origin and final placement of the core of any form of life. Nowhere does it say that life has to be as we see it.

[dbmk]

206. And nowhere was there any indication that it could be different.

Until now. And saying we are "too arrogant to believe that we are all the 'life' that can exist" is a strawman. 20-20 woowoo hindsight is just hilarious.

And theres no reason to believe that the bacteria was introduced from the "outside".

[Guilded Lilly]

106. Wayyyyy Cool :)

[Johnny2X2X]

108. God ia amazing

And to think he blinked all of this into existence some 5000 years ago paying special attention to leave a mountain of evidence that the earth is much much older just to test our faith. What a joker.

[msanthrope]

133. There are no gods. Only the myths we used to explain what we

did not know.

[NeoGreen]

167. Rec^Google

:)

[dbmk]

207. The God FAQ agrees

http://www.400monkeys.com/God/

[texastoast]

183. NO, Goddess is

;-)

That Yahweh is nothing but a mountain storm guy. Like Zeus.

Jesus wasn't talking about Yahweh, but damned if the Christians have figured that one out yet.

[blackspade]

110. Very cool!

[struggle4progress]

115. NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

... "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?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years ...

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html

[old mark]

120. K&R - So will there be - or has there been - and Arsenic Jesus?...nt

[Ian David]

122. The NASA biologist lady is SO pretty! n/t

[ElsewheresDaughter]

123. image of Mono Lake, CA....

[backtomn]

124. This is new in "naturally-occurring" living organisms.....

....but, the technology exists to produce such an organism. Some high-end nutritional supplements contain Selenium Yeast, which is produced by replacing Sulfur with Selenium (same charge), in the certain amino acids (methionine, cystine). So, it could occur naturally, but has certainly never been found.....until today.

It is amazing how many great chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc. are first found naturally.

[MicaelS]

128. "It's Life Jim, but not as we know it."

I'm sorry, I could not resist that line!

[Ian David]

134. Hey, they just did a shout-out to the Horta! n/t

[peace13]

135. On the 8th day God created GFAJ-1!!! n/t

[Ian David]

137. This could be used to produce bio-fuel without wasting phosphorous required for food fertilizer. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

157. We'd fertilize with arsenic instead ??

I don't want to live near any farm of yours! :evilgrin:

[Ian David]

181. Could also be used to clean-up arsenic-tainted landfills. n/t

[hunter]

169. So far as practical uses go...

... I'm certain the pharmaceutical industry is looking at this.

[Gman]

141. Time continues to march on and man's understanding of the universe slowly expands

It progresses little by little,but in important ways.

[bongbong]

147. repigs wanted arsenic to be legal

Ex-president Cheney & his errand-boy shrub wanted the legal limits of arsenic increased in water. Does this mean that repigs are another form of life?

[ZombieHorde]

152. "this bacteria is made of arsenic"

Aren't Teabaggers bacteria made from arsenic?

[Cleita]

158. *whistling "Twilight Zone" music*

:wow:

[Geoff R. Casavant]

162. Alas, it's not a naturally-occurring phenomenon

The latest articles say that scientists took a naturally-occurring bacteria in Mono Lake and "trained" it to use arsenic in addition to phosphorus.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/02/5564852-life-as-we-dont-know-it-on-earth?GT1=43001

[eppur_se_muova]

188. Thanks. That article provides some needed wet blanketry. nt

[hunter]

215. How do you "train" bacteria?

The capability was already in the kit. That's very interesting, especially in these very complex chemical systems that were presumed to be very finely tuned.

Replacing phosphorous with arsenic in these systems ought to break them, and in most organisms it does.

We think we know a lot about biochemistry, but we've only scratched the surface.

I suspect the signature of life is written across the universe. We just can't see it yet.

[valerief]

168. Genetic engineering industrial waste dumped into the lake?

Or naturally occurring life forms?

Yes, I know the article says the latter and I find this fascinating.

I wonder if they found it in a little teeny ark. No, that would have been in Kentucky.
:rofl:

[taught_me_patience]

170. Obviously, God put it there to test our faith!

I kid I kid.

[Althaia]

171. This highlights the importance of the Cassini mission

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

The probe Cassini has been studying the Saturn system for a while. It has discovered lakes of liquid methane on Titan, and ice volcanoes on the surface of Enceladus, suggesting liquid water beneath its crust of ice. It has also discovered that Rhea has a thin oxygen/carbon dioxide atmosphere.

Demonstrating that life does not have to have the same chemical composition in all cases is enormously important. It supports the idea that there could very well be microbial life elsewhere in our own solar system.

[baldguy]

172. I, for one welcome our new Halomonadaceae overlords!

(And you people thought Bush was just being an asshole when he upped the amount of arsenic allowed in our water!)

[Odin2005]

175. HOLY SHIT! This is huge!

Incredible, just incredible! :wow:

[SweetieD]

177. This is pretty major news!!

[BlueJazz]

178. I like my life-forms in 2 types. Is there a Stereo Lake?

[vduhr]

200. Oh lord....

Rolls eyes, but still laughing.

[BlueJazz]

208. :) :)

:)

[skyounkin]

179. I for one

Welcome our new Arsenic based overlords!!

[coti]

180. Could this necessitate a new kingdom?

As far as I know, the five kingdoms all use phosporous-based DNA.

[Bolo Boffin]

182. This is not quite right. They forced the bacteria to accept arsenic into its DNA.

Which means that life can go there. It's still quite an astonishing announcement.

[derby378]

184. How many new nucleotides does this discovery yield?

Previously, we only had experience with four nucleotides. How many more does this lifeform introduce into the mix?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

191. why can't it be a gene mutation? Uses arsenic instead of P

[Duer 157099]

194. It would have to be a whole slew of mutations, imho

Just think, every phosphatase would also have to be mutated to use arsenic instead of phosphorus. Phosphorus is such a fundamental element in cells and is involved in many, many metabolic processes. The article didn't note whether As substitutes P in *all* other molecules, that seems an important question. If so, it will have to be radically different.

[ElboRuum]

216. Perhaps not.

Chemical interactions, for the most part, depend on the configuration of valence electrons, and elements in the periodic table in the same column have the same valence configuration. Additionally, elements in the same column also have similar chemical properties otherwise. While arsenic is a larger element sizewise, which may impact protein folding, it should substitute well in most reactions and processes where phosphorus would be present.

[mike_c]

212. it is an adaptation-- the mechanism isn't known yet....

See #231 above.

[vduhr]

192. Whoa!

There are some smart science geeks here on DU! I am impressed!

I love hearing about finds like this. Considering the vastness and possible infinity of outer space, isn't anything possible? Any form of life? I ponder a lot.

[mdmc]

196. r

[RoccoR5955]

217. They didn't have to go that far... They only had to

sequence Boner's DNA. Then Cheney's. They would have found two distinctly different forms of life.

[BlueCollar]

221. but I've not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean

You owe me a keyboard...

Surely this counts for a DUzy?

[NuttyFluffers]

224. Cool! and to think at one point Mono Lake was endangered.

we could've wiped out a major scientific discovery just for the need of water to maintain a major metropolis in the arid southern coast of California.

[Chisox08]

225. I'm willing to bet that those bacteria is more intelligent than

the average Republican.

[Duer 157099]

234. A hypothesis worth testing

Of course, the protocol for the bacteria was to expose them to high levels of arsenic. To be scientific, we'd have to apply the same to the Repugs for comparison.

[Chisox08]

235. I'm all for it in the interest of science of course

:evilgrin:

[David Zephyr]

229. I loved this news story this morning (PST).Thanks for posting it.

And the great photo of Sagan, too. :)

[Evasporque]

231. Attack of the Arsenic and Old Lace Creature!...nt