theholycow
12-03-2010, 01:33 AM
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/NASA-DNA-Arsenic-Life-form-Mono-Lake,news-9190.html
[NASA] had found bacteria in a poisonous lake in California with a previously unheard of DNA makeup. Instead of being comprised of the six building blocks of life that we previously believed to be the basis of every living thing, the DNA showed that the bacteria replaced one of the building blocks, phosphorus, with arsenic.
{...}
"The definition of life has just expanded," Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's HQ, said today. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."
I've always thought something like this was possible, but I did not expect to see it on Earth...I just figured that if there was any life elsewhere we would not even notice it as we looked for life too similar to what we know.
[NASA] had found bacteria in a poisonous lake in California with a previously unheard of DNA makeup. Instead of being comprised of the six building blocks of life that we previously believed to be the basis of every living thing, the DNA showed that the bacteria replaced one of the building blocks, phosphorus, with arsenic.
{...}
"The definition of life has just expanded," Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's HQ, said today. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."
I've always thought something like this was possible, but I did not expect to see it on Earth...I just figured that if there was any life elsewhere we would not even notice it as we looked for life too similar to what we know.