Life as we don't know it ... on Earth?

msnbc.com ^ | Dec. 2, 2010

[Free ThinkerNY]

Alan Boyle writes:NASA's secret is finally out: Researchers say they've forced microbes from a gnarly California lake to become arsenic-gobbling aliens. It may not be as thrilling as discovering life on Titan, but the claim is so radical that some chemists aren't yet ready to believe it.

If the claim holds up, it would lend weight to the idea that life as we know it isn't the only way life could develop. Organisms with truly alien biochemistry could conceivably arise on a faraway exoplanet, or on the Saturnian moon Titan, or even here on Earth.

"Our findings are a reminder that life as we know it could be much more flexible than we generally assume or can imagine," Felisa Wolfe-Simon, an astrobiology researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a statement from Arizona State University announcing the results. Wolfe-Simon is the lead author of a paper reporting the findings, which was published online today by the journal Science.

Four years ago, while studying at ASU, Wolfe-Simon proposed that some organisms in extreme environments might be adapted to use arsenic in place of phosphorus. Phosphorus is one of the elements essential to life's chemistry -- in addition to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur. Arsenic, which is just below phosphorus on the periodic table, is poisonous precisely because it can take phosphorus' place in biomolecules.

"It gets in there and sort of gums up the works of our biochemical machinery," ASU's Ariel Anbar, a co-author of the Science paper, explained.

[MHGinTN]

So is this the earth shaking announcement NASA piqued the world for?

[Sto Zvirat]

I wouldn’t call it earth shaking, but its damned interesting and it changes the way we look at biology. Its been theorized that life like this could exist, and now its been found. Knowledge and learning are good things.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Yes, it is exciting. Yes, they deserve more funding.

I just have an issue with making assumptions to such an extent that other possibilities are dismissed until a new “discovery” forces the scientific community to rethink their methods. Why not begin with the premise that other possibilities may exist even if we haven’t observed them?

[MHGinTN]

Does it work off of DNA information coding? Then it ain’t new, just new to NASA.

[kroll]

"If science hasn’t observed it, then it cannot and doesn’t exist? So dismiss it as a possibility until it’s “discovered?”

The possibility is never "dismissed" (The Scientific method does not Allow for that), its just that since we haven't found one yet(essentially, discovered), there is little reason to expect it to exist, and hence the surprise. And its absolutely essential that when we something unlikely or rare, one check the science and be skeptical about it. Skepticism is Not to be confused with arrogance though one can see why that might be cause for confusion. The default position in science is one of skepticism, not belief. If the sun decides to not rise tomorrow, you hardly expect people to shrug and say "Huh, Interesting...". It is a necessarily unlikely event which should be cause for surprise. Besides, any perception of arrogance is necessarily about the people involved. "Scientists" aren't a stereotypical group of people with simple characterizations. There are arrogant ones and humble ones, (mostly) lefty ones and conservative ones(like me) but they can, in general, Not be typecast.

[SunkenCiv]

• NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2
• NASA to make MAJOR ALIENS REVELATION this week
• Nasa raises hopes of finding extra-terrestrials, discovery of 'alien' bacteria, survives in arsenic
• NASA's 'Extraterrestrial' Announcement Gets Blown Out of Proportion
• NASA: Life in Space? Not Quite, but Life That Thrives on Arsenic

Thanks Free ThinkerNY. Astrobiology, panspermia, arsenic, exobiology...

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[SunkenCiv]

• Backing off an arsenic-eating claim (NASA search for life)
• Scientists: NASA's alleged discovery of arsenic-based life is crap