NASA announcement today: the discovery of a new lifeform unlike anything else.

[Blind Sight]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nasa-finds-new-life/

Press conference is in a half hour, but it's about an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. This means that other planets don't really have to be like earth to support life. Might not seem big, but it's a major step forward in biology and SCIENCE.

I'll post more if I have time once the conference is over.

EDIT: I should add that this lifeform is NOT an alien, it was found on earth.

 

[IamQ]

Oh my. Even though I didn't expect it to be something like an alien, I'm still a little disappointed that it was just a bacteria. Though, the fact that it's DNA is completely different from ours, makes it kind of interesting.

 

[Jamiemitsu]

Dosen't that pretty much mean that there could now be life on Mars?

 

[Scabadus]

The noise that just came out of my mouth was some sort of stunned amazement combined with exited swearing. It was wierd.

I'm a microbiologist so I find this a little more exiting than most people, but WOW this is a fantastic discovery.

 

[Hader]

Dosen't that pretty much mean that there could now be life on Mars?

That means life could possibly be anywhere with the right conditions, which this study is aiming to show that nothing has to be an earth-replica to be ideal for life. It's a step in that direction at least.

I remember reading an article a year or so ago about some theories similar to this finding, ironically enough. It was about how life can possibly be based on different conditions, elements, etc. That is, not ALL life would necessarily need water to survive...organisms may adapt something like CO2, or even ammonia, to be its 'base' substance of survival much like water is to us.

That is all off the top of my head though, I do not remember many specifics, but the ideas are interesting to say the least, and this study adds on to that.

 

[Blind Sight]

The interesting thing is that science fiction writers have been predicting stuff like this for years. Michael Crichton's Sphere has a great speech about how if we ever do meet aliens, both their biology and state could be so fundamentally different from us that it would be impossible to interact. He then made random examples, including an alien that exhales arsenic, one that stabs you in the chest as a way of shaking hands, etc.

 

[BabySinclair]

This opens up a whole new area of life. Once one of the building blocks is shown to be different, the others are more likely to have differences too elsewhere. In time it could be possible for an organism (let's say bacteria) to have nothing in common with our own DNA. If it could happen on Earth, it could happen beyond our planet too.

 

[Tartarga]

This is some pretty big news, it pretty much confirms that there could be life on other planets. I bet somewhere some aliens are laughing that we only just discovered this, bastards.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Oh my. Even though I didn't expect it to be something like an alien, I'm still a little disappointed that it was just a bacteria. Though, the fact that it's DNA is completely different from ours, makes it kind of interesting.

More than kind of interesting. If life can evolve to use something as toxic as arsenic (really nasty stuff, better known as rat poison), we have to discount our previous assumptions that everything needs to be "perfect" for life to exist. In other words, we can now search for life just about everywhere, as the chance of finding it is no longer zero. This is a groundbreaking discovery, and I'd expect somebody to get a Nobel for it if they can show the evolutionary mechanism.

 

[Woodsey]

"Press conference is in a half hour, but it's about an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. This means that other planets don't really have to be like earth to support life. "

...

I just want it on the record that I've said that loads of fucking times.

 

[Blind Sight]

"Press conference is in a half hour, but it's about an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. This means that other planets don't really have to be like earth to support life. "

...

I just want it on the record that I've said that loads of fucking times.

Oh, plenty of people have said it, but now we have EVIDENCE to back up our theories haha. +1 Intelligence to all science geeks talking about life on other planets.

 

[Woodsey]

"Press conference is in a half hour, but it's about an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. This means that other planets don't really have to be like earth to support life. "

...

I just want it on the record that I've said that loads of fucking times.

Oh, plenty of people have said it, but now we have EVIDENCE to back up our theories haha. +1 Intelligence to all science geeks talking about life on other planets.

Evidence shmevidence, I still called it.

 

[captainwolfos]

Well, this just confirms what I've basically been saying for years and looked totally crazy while doing so. Just think - there could be other things out there with a different biological makeup to earth dwelling animals, which are much bigger than single celled organisms. Or there may be in a few million years time.
I've always said aliens didn't have to be humanoid things we end up killing in hordes on video games or in movies, they could be plant-like, or as with this case, bacteria. Evolution time could have doubled, or there could be billions of years required for alien life to catch up with us. That's just my two cents. Take it for what it is XD

 

[The Stonker]

DANGIT! You beat me!

This is still awesome.

 

[VanityGirl]

"Press conference is in a half hour, but it's about an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. This means that other planets don't really have to be like earth to support life. "

...

I just want it on the record that I've said that loads of fucking times.

Oh, plenty of people have said it, but now we have EVIDENCE to back up our theories haha. +1 Intelligence to all science geeks talking about life on other planets.

Evidence shmevidence, I still called it.

High five for calling it!

Don't leave me hanging.

OT: I sort of already knew about this so, meh.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I've always thought that life on other planets probably wouldn't need oxygen to live, they're aliens for gods sake! They could breathe nitrogen and shit jelly beans!

 

[theriddlen]

Unless the new lifeform is blue and has boobiez, i don't give a damn about it.

 

[manythings]

Dosen't that pretty much mean that there could now be life on Mars?

That means life could possibly be anywhere with the right conditions, which this study is aiming to show that nothing has to be an earth-replica to be ideal for life. It's a step in that direction at least.

I remember reading an article a year or so ago about some theories similar to this finding, ironically enough. It was about how life can possibly be based on different conditions, elements, etc. That is, not ALL life would necessarily need water to survive...organisms may adapt something like CO2, or even ammonia, to be its 'base' substance of survival much like water is to us.

That is all off the top of my head though, I do not remember many specifics, but the ideas are interesting to say the least, and this study adds on to that.

Maybe I'm wrong but wasn't it hypothesised in the 80's that ammonia could work since there was a fair amount around back in the primordial times?

 

[Blind Sight]

I've always said aliens didn't have to be humanoid things we end up killing in hordes on video games or in movies, they could be plant-like, or as with this case, bacteria. Evolution time could have doubled, or there could be billions of years required for alien life to catch up with us. That's just my two cents. Take it for what it is XD

The book my avatar and name comes from, Blindsight, expands on this really well. In it, sentinence is actually genetic defect, humans discover that the majority of life in the galaxy can't actually self-recognize and instead function as part of a collective whole, like their whole species is one giant organism. It's a great book, I'd suggest checking it out.