NASA Discovers New Form Of Life...A Thread For My Fellow Science Geeks

There is no punchline here, I just find the discovery to be absolutely fascinating!!

From a Department Of Energy blog, posted yesterday:

"As a fellow geek, you probably heard NASA’s big news yesterday.

If not, here’s a recap: It was once assumed that all life on Earth, from humans and giraffes to scorpions and plankton, are all based on six essential elements (oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorous). However, In a study that could rewrite biology textbooks, scientists have found the first known living organism that incorporates arsenic into the working parts of its cells. The study,led by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey has revealed a bacteria (a Halomonadaceae bacteria called GFAJ-1) in California’s Mono Lake that has replaced phosphorous with its toxic neighbor on the periodic table.

A number of collaborators worked together to complete this ground-breaking study, including NASA Astrobiology Institute, Arizona State University, Duquesne University and DOE’s own Lawrence Livermore and SLAC Accelerator National Labs.

At Lawrence Livermore, scientists Jennifer Pett-Ridge and Peter Weber used the lab’s NanoSIMS facility, which analyzes elements and isotopes down to the 50-nanometer scale, to identify concentrations of arsenic in the bacteria’s cells and extracted DNA. Pett-Ridge explained, “We found that arsenic was higher in the cells than in the environment outside of the cells.”

And at SLAC, scientist Sam Webb led efforts to apply the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to this research. The team first ran SSRL’s X-ray beam over the bacteria sample to see where arsenic is located in the cells and determine how it got there. Next, the team used the X-ray in the spectroscopic mode, which identifies the types and locations of specific atoms, and found that the arrangement of arsenic, oxygen and carbon atoms mimicked the way phosphorous is arranged in typical strands of DNA.

Read more on Lawrence Livermore’s and SLAC’s contributions to this new discovery HERE and HERE"




So, life can form and build itself on non-typical elements.... which makes me wonder what can grow, live, and thrive on other planets. Discuss!

So there is inteligent life on Earth after all!! :-)

Titan is looking better all the time for possible life in our solar system.

To think we are the only possible life in the universe is stupid. Even in a religous contex, I dont recall Genesis saying God created man and no other intelegiant life.

We now know of planets around other stars that are in the zone that could support life as we know it. And now, we have to expand that concept to include life as we did not know it. Are there little green men out there? Who knows for sure but I hope so. If we can survive as a race long enough, maybe we will get out there and find others. Its a wonderous universe and we should learn all we can about it.

On "Coast to Coast" an after midnight radio show devoted to the terminally weird they were speculating that this lifeform is extraterrestrial. The fact that NASA is introducing it to us is just to get us ready for their really big announcement. That being there are already aliens here and they're going to let us in on their big secret.

I can hardly wait.