So, has NASA actually found life out there?

[450knotOffice]

Interesting.

[jcommin]

From Jurassic Park:

Quote from Dr. Malcolm: Nature finds a way.

[RWebb]

very big deal, but nearly as exciting as green chicks

[Pazuzu]

This is akin to finding silicon based life here on earth. The idea has been postulated for decades, knowing that the periodic table gives symmetry to certain elements. Carbon is the backbone of all life as we know it because it can link into indefinitely long chains while allowing other elements to piggyback, giving amino acids the structure need. Well, silicon can do the exact same thing. You can take any hydrocarbon chain and replace each carbon with silicon and it will retain the structure.

If you look at the numbers (on Wiki, but I trust factual stuff like on Wiki)...

In the Solar System, silicon is about 6 times rarer than carbon, while arsenic appears to be 10-20 times more abundant than phosphorous. But on EARTH, silicon is about 500 times more common than carbon (but it's all trapped in molecules), while phosphorous is over 500 times more common than arsenic. I find that interesting, how the relative abundances inverts so much between the Earth's surface and the solar system around it.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by RWebb

very big deal, but nearly as exciting as green chicks

The scientist in you is very evident with this statement. It is a big deal.

Ian

[kach22i]

December 2, 2010 11:46 AM PST
NASA scientists discover all-new form of life
Read more: NASA scientists discover all-new form of life | Geek Gestalt - CNET News
NASA scientists discover all-new form of life | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

This is a NASA image of the microbe GFAJ-1 grown on arsenic. The microbe is the first known life to have a DNA structure different than all other known life forms.
(Credit: NASA)

Read more: NASA scientists discover all-new form of life | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

NASA scientists have discovered an entirely new form of life that shares no biological building blocks with anything currently known on Earth, the agency said today.

In a press conference held at NASA's Washington D.C. headquarters, scientists announced that they had discovered a new form of bacteria, known as GFAJ-1, in California's Mono Lake that has DNA completely foreign to anything ever before found on Earth. It substitutes arsenic at the DNA level for phosphorus.

That would distinguish it from every other form of life known to man, all of which, no matter how diverse, is comprised of the same six elements, phosphorus, sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. But the bacteria found in Mono Lake--which is known for its unusual chemistry, including very high levels of salinity, alkalinity, and arsenic--is made partly of arsenic, and has no phosphorus in its DNA.

"We've discovered an organism that can substitute one element for another," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA astrobiology research fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif. "We've cracked open the door to what's possible for life elsewhere in the universe.

Although there had been speculation that NASA's announcement would revolve around life--perhaps bacteria--found elsewhere, such as Mars, the news does keep us here on Earth.

But Wolfe-Simon said that by discovering a microbe that has a new form of DNA, it forces scientists to question what they've long held as true--that all life was based on the same six components.

"The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria," NASA wrote in a release. "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."

NASA feels that this discovery is important because it will help scientists with many areas of future research, such as the "study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation, and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research."


Read more: NASA scientists discover all-new form of life | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

EDIT:
The big six are:
We Have Salted The Earth

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth.

[GH85Carrera]

I knew the residents of California were different but that is stranger than normal even for California.

[Pazuzu]

This young scientist has been searching for this very event for some time.
Searching for Alien Life, on Earth
Sign in to read: Early life could have relied on 'arsenic DNA' - life - 26 April 2008 - New Scientist
Cambridge Journals Online - Abstract

She mentions something interesting, which I haven't yet seen as related to this press release. I mentioned above that the Solar System (ie. primordial stuff) has a higher arsenic abundance than phosphorous. The early Earth would have been a highly arsenic enriched environment, which would be toxic to modern biology. She mentions that early life on Earth would have likely been arsenic based, and that as some point later in time, might have died off as the arsenic-phosphorous ration changed. Then, a SECOND creation of life would have occurred, but phosphorous based this time.

I shall not mention how quaint that is (two distinct and complete formations of life from non-life on Earth), because it'll end up bumping this thread to the abyss.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

So, Sammy's FoxNews blogger obviously got some scooped info, but he got his report all wrong. So sad. I don't know what's worse, that a Fox blogger got info handed to him, or that he can't even bother to contact someone with a basic astronomical education to teach him what's in front of him.

It's not bacteria that live off of arsenic. It's microbes that have replaced phosphorus IN THEIR DNA with arsenic.

They have taken one of the 6 vital building blocks of life, and replaced it with something completely different.

Ask the biologists here if that's a big deal or not.

If you knew how to read simple sentences and actually comprehend them, you'd know that I said I was GUESSING that's what it was based on the people involved, S-F-B!
what a dork.

[Rick V]

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

If you knew how to read simple sentences and actually comprehend them, you'd know that I said I was GUESSING that's what it was based on the people involved, S-F-B!
what a dork.

You guessed? No one guessed, he was too stupid to read a leaked press release. Go on, you just keep quoting BLOGGERS about stuff that neither you nor them knows a thing about.

Oh yeah, SCIENCE spent TAX MONEY on something interesting. What a wonderful world we live in!!

[M.D. Holloway]

This is a very big deal. It will be looked at in the future as one of the biggest things sense Watson and Cricks findings.

[MBAtarga]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

This is a very big deal. It will be looked at in the future as one of the biggest things sense Watson and Cricks findings.

Oh, yea - Watson and Cricks!


What in the world are they known for?

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally Posted by MBAtarga

Oh, yea - Watson and Cricks!


What in the world are they known for?

James D. Watson and Francis Crick proposed the double helix structure for the DNA molecule in 1953.

What these folks have done is pretty darn cool IMO.

[RWebb]

good thing L.A. never got to drain Mono Lake...

[slakjaw]

damn! very cool!

[porsche4life]

Originally Posted by MBAtarga

Oh, yea - Watson and Cricks!


What in the world are they known for?

I hope you were being facetious....

They were the first to come up with the structure of DNA. One of the most important findings of science to date.


This is big. Good work NASA!

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

So, Sammy's FoxNews blogger obviously got some scooped info, but he got his report all wrong. So sad. I don't know what's worse, that a Fox blogger got info handed to him, or that he can't even bother to contact someone with a basic astronomical education to teach him what's in front of him.

It's not bacteria that live off of arsenic. It's microbes that have replaced phosphorus IN THEIR DNA with arsenic.

They have taken one of the 6 vital building blocks of life, and replaced it with something completely different.

Ask the biologists here if that's a big deal or not.

Hey Einstein, I didn't spend much time studying biology but obviously you are an expert based on your post.
So can you please enlighten all of us? I mean, when you aren't busy making false claims to discredit my posts?

You said in your post that they didn't discover bacteria, but discovered microbes instead (snicker, chuckle).
So please, if you don't mind, share a bit of your expertise and explain to all of us uninformed peons how bacteria are not microbes? ROFLMAO.
I've been told that not all microbes are bacteria, but all bacteria are micro-organisms (microbes).

You obviously know more about it than the scientists who made this earth-shattering discovery and announcement, yet they called these little tiny organizms bacteria.
can you please explain how they could have made such a huge mistake?
snicker
This is what those foolish so-called scientists said on NASA's website:

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.

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


While you are correcting those dumb NASA scientists you also might wanna update and correct the wiki page on microbes, those darned fools think that bacteria are microbes. Yeah I know, how dumb can they be? LOL
Microorganism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Pazuzu]

Do you have anything useful or vaguely intelligent to say?

[tcar]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

James D. Watson and Francis Crick proposed the double helix structure for the DNA molecule in 1953.

That's disputed, I've read...

actually they 'borrowed' the research of Rosalind Franklin, and her work on the helix.

They got theirs published before hers, though...

Many years later, Crick admitted that they used her data.