Nasa Finds New Life - On Planet earth

Originally posted by OptimusPrimate

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. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first time that this has been confirmed. 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. 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.

Pretty cool - but surely it was only a matter of time before the theory was proven right?

Article on Gizmondo

Related article from the Nasa Press conference; Did NASA find life on one of Saturns Moons?

Regards

As first science officer Spock would have said..."Fascinating". One must understand that the DNA constituents that we see now are from a time when Earth's climate changed. One must put into perspective that there were two Earths. One before oxygen, and one after oxygen. We are here because bacteria from the "before oxygen earth" produced oxygen as a byproduct of their waste. After a couple billion years, the atmosphere became this "toxic" oxygen atmosphere and hence our DNA chemistry and our existence. My belief is that this arsenic incorporating bacteria is a vestigial organism from when Earth was in its pre-oxygen state and survived to this date

Cheers

reply to post by OptimusPrimate


I am disappointed.

2nd line.

Originally posted by Helmkat
Honestly I hate that Sagan quote. "Extraordinary to who?", only in terms of limited Human understanding is this extraordinary.

I think you're asking the wrong question, it's not extraordinary to who? It's extraordinary to what? (the what being the database of scientific evidence and knowledge)

For example, a recent poll showed 86% of respondents think there is ET life, so the discovery of ET life will probably not be extraordinary to those 86%, but rather, expected, since they said they expect it.

WHAT it's extraordinary to, is the existing database of scientific knowledge and evidence, since we currently have only one POSSIBLE martian rock as a sign of possible ET life or something else. Therefore when ET life evidence is scrutinized, there will need to be extraordinary steps taken to ensure that it it's truly an ET microbe, that it's not a microbe from Earth that contaminated the ET environment for example. I don't think it will be an extraordinary claim for most people to accept, it will just be an extraordinary claim to prove based on the evidence since there is no evidence yet and it's so easy to contaminate things with Earth life since Earth life is so ubiquitous (and hardy, in the case of the extremophile variety).

Does that make you feel any better at Sagan's quote? I think perhaps you might need to look at it differently.

I just can't wait until we have a manned mission to Mars, and start digging and excavating like we have done here on Earth. I believe we will find fossils, since there is frozen ice under parts of Mars. Once we have a manned mission, I think we will find and begin to understand thing's about Mars nobody every realized, considering we just brushed the surface. The real details and clues lie underneath.