NASA finds new life

SirFryanator

SirFryanator

Active member
http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

Hopefully this isn't a hoax, I guess we'll find out soon enough.

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Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first time that this has been confirmed. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.

We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology. I don't know about you, but I've not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. [NOS—In Dutch]

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Last sentence cracks me up so much.

 
Not a hoax..gizmodo is pretty legit, also other sources are citing it like cnn

although cnn's coverage is downright embarassing..how are 'youtube launching skippable ads' and 'obamas christmas list' on the same level of importance?? fuck you cnn
 
Just goes to show, Life can probably exist almost anywhere.

The more we find on out planet ALONE just proves that there has got to be something else out there.
 
Securing my spot in this history-making-even thread. I'll be watching the press conference, should be interesting. When I saw the title I was thinking it would be on another planet, and I got really, really excited for a second. This is still cool though.
 
5xo490.jpg


This is crazy. This changes litarally everything we know about biology.
 
haha, more ammo for people to shoot down evolution and the rest fo biology. can't blame anyone who does tho, my intro do bio class makes me want to believe in creationism
 
yeah I guess its being officially announced at like 7 tonight or something.

So much for finding "another Earth-like planet." Fuckin bacteria can be found anywhere now. This is nuts.
 
that's still pretty sweet, most likely just a mutation from living in a poisonous lake though
 
I wanna know if this bacteria has the potential to become a muti-celled organism and what potential environments or planets it could live on. I love this stuff.
 
Get the fuck back to space NASA.

But seriously, thats pretty wild. I wanna see some sort of visual of what this thing looks like. Definitely looking forward to seeing what happens with this discovery in the future.

 
dumbest spokeswoman ever

i found... i mean i LED the team that discovered this

her replacement for an extremely arrogant statement was still really damn arrogant
 
That's not really possible. We're talking complete and utter change in DNA. This is fucking life shattering information.
 
HOLD THE PHONE, skippable ads on youtube?? tell me how

but for real, this is cool. though i don't see much of a reason why this is a surprise.. sort of poor inductive reasoning if they confidently thought that this wasn't possible.. did they?
 
I mean there are extremophiles- bacteria that can live in extreme environments (drastic temperature change, very low oxygen levels, etc), but if these things can live off of arsenic that's like a whole new level of crazy. Extremophiles are looked at as being biological marvels, let alone this.
 
yeah, any kind of bacteria that lives in extreme places like that is remarkable due to it's ability to survive. But those still have a phosphate, deoxyribose and nitrogenous base making up their DNA. I still want to see where the As is here, is it just in place of the P and bonded to 4 O to make the arensate part. I guess the backbone part of the DNA is made of an arsenate and a deoxyribose. I don't think they said though so I'm not sure.

/bio talk
 
Not surprising?

This goes agains the fundamentals we thought were needed for life.

Let's take about biology remember that class?

How about medicine?

And life on other planets.
 
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, what you might consider not important might be considered important to others.
 
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