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New Life Found!
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nasa-finds-new-life/
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don't be too scared, we already had suspicions that life could develop with arsenic and the "this changes everything we know" bit is over exaggerated, while it does contain arsenic it also contains some of the elements we've known to sustain life as well, and the part to get excited about was arsenic sustaining life on its own. albeit this is a good discovery it's really being overblown on a lot of forums i frequent, as one thread goes "what do you think the aliens will do?".
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Wait, wait, wait...
If the bacterium was discovered in a lake in California - which, if I remember correctly - is located on the earth - why did the NASA discover it then? I'm confused now. |
This is a pretty bug deal. Having Arsenic interwoven into the DNA structure was widely considered to be impossible before this, and the bacteria was found in a poisonous lake that normally couldn't support life. Now that we know this, this means that life doesn't necessarily need completely earthlike conditions to survive, so alien life just got a potential boost in terms of believability.
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the introduction of arsenic into a ring of compounds on which earth dwelling creatures are comprised of is logistically miniscule in comparison to the total amount of compounds and elements, out of however many hundreds, thousands or millions there are; we have a total of 6 documented, 7 including arsenic. if we were to have a percentage of how likely alien life was before this discovery and after, at most it might move .00000000000000000001. i'm not denying that it's a discovery and i never said that to begin with, i'm only saying you might not want to get pumped up over what somebody could already deduce and what already has been. aside from that, the only reason we're calling this organism unearthly is because we just discovered it. who knows how long it's been around, it could have been a compound of life for just as long as either carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus or sulfur. it's beyond me how an organism found on earth can be considered anything but earthly, i think this is really going over a lot of people's heads. lastly, since it isn't exhibited as being a basic building block of life like the aforementioned compounds, the likelihood of it contributing to life are even less than what i demonstrated in my percentile lowering it even more. |
Cool, but I can't help but notice how it's merely microscopic. Not to say it's uninteresting anyway, but seeing what these things would be like if sizeable would've been better.
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When NASA announced they were going to reveal something huge, I was hoping it was about aliens. Though I hope this discovery will reveal a lot of things we do not know yet.
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Maybe it will cause the zombie apocalypse that Sammy is oh-so-ready for
Truth is when Sammy heard that NASA found new life earlier today, Sammy was hoping for something along the lines of the Locust Horde from Gears of War or the Covenant or Flood from Halo Sammy hopes for too much... |
Eh, call me when you finally discover the dimensional border of Gensokyo, NASA. Even a scandalous picture of Reimu's armpits would work~
In all seriousness, this is being handled incorrectly. Give the medical community a shot, not NASA. |
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Where it says "made of arsenic" is it literally an arsenic-based life form (unlike all other carbonic life on earth) or does it just have arsenic as part of its DNA? If it's the former, then holy guacamole. If it's just the latter...still, wow. :D
After doing a quick bit of research, it appears to actually be an arsenic-based life form, which is pretty wow. Basically, what makes this thing pretty amazing is that every other life form on earth is carbon-based, and this uses arsenic-based something-or-rathers as its life building blocks rather than carbon-based proteins and stuff. |
It kinda scares me and I don't know why :/. But in all seriousness this is pretty amazing.
Sammy isn't the only one who's ready |
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And they just sort of found it, layin around in some toxic lake California. XD |
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Just goes to show that you can't really expect anything, nor come to conclusions especially on the topic of toxic lakes XD. Pretty unique discovery too. |
Well, now that we know that chemically similar elements may be able to replace the essential elements of life we know, it opens up many frontiers upon which lifeforms could possibly be found.
Hopefully this will make it more simple to accept that life can occur in many forms. We may discover intelligent life forms that are not based on the same elements we are. Who knows? Hopefully we discover even MORE weird life like this. I think science needs to be turned upside down about 50 or 60 times more before they get the whole picture properly. XD |
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo351/rocbayne1980/applaud.gif
I never ever eeeeeeeever saw this coming! |
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Quite Very cool really. It will help convince those that think all life in the universe(s) are like us otherwise, if nothing else.
Thinking about it, should it really be classed as a bacterium? Surely, seeing as it couldn't be further away from other bacteria (and eathlings in general for that matter) in terms of genetics and, in turn, the way it works (presumably), it should be in it's own arsenic-based kingdom. I too am ready. A facebook quiz told me I would survive the zombie apocalypse. |
I honestly don't care too much. As long as it isn't dangerous, who cares? I mean, its cool that it's a totally new life form, but other than that...oh well. Good for NASA
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Knowledge does require boundaries to be expanded after all. |
The first thing that popped in my AP Environmental Science teacher:
The movie "Evolution" it's coming true. Burn the darn thing and it grows! xDDDD |
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on one hand you're telling me it was widely considered to be impossible for arsenic to contribute to life, and on the other you're saying it was previously theorized. which is it? |
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