Question of the Day, December 3, 2010

[Rainforce]

so.... every time they find something in that category they will make such a hassle about it? I mean, we have the bacteria/fungi in chernobyl, the life that surrounds black smokers in the sea, etc..
this is INDEED. NOTHING. NEW. (at least not really)

Im sad that they pulled this off.

 

[unacomn]

I for one welcome our new arsenic based overlords.

 

[Exort]

I just can't seem to push it beyond the scope of interesting... If I knew what could COME of it, it might interest me more

It might be able to prove life have started more than one time on Earth, therefore it is very possible life can start any where in space.

*snip*

I was never under the assumption that all life had to be carbon based. Granted, I'm no scientist, but I figured that, given the right conditions, life could develop anywhere and from anything. The remaining mystery is what sparks the creation of life under seemingly random conditions with seemingly random elements.

Carbon typically forms four bonds. This allows it to form essentially infinite chains (polymers, including proteins). The most obvious alternative to carbon for the basis of complex life is silicon which has similar bonding characteristics although it would be less stable.

I personally doesn't think so. Silicon's bond like you said is too weak to form any big enough to form life.

 

[Exort]

so.... every time they find something in that category they will make such a hassle about it? I mean, we have the bacteria/fungi in chernobyl, the life that surrounds black smokers in the sea, etc..
this is INDEED. NOTHING. NEW. (at least not really)

Im sad that they pulled this off.

If you study Bio you will know how big of a deal this is.
I think people is missing the point.
It is not where the bact is found.
It is what the bact is made of.
arsenic is posion to almost all Life form because it is too alike phosphorus, because our body would treat it like phosphorus but it doesn't function the same way.

However, there have be thoery on if life can be start again in Outterspace nothing prevent from starting again on Earth.
Therefore, lot of people start finding life that is different enough that might have a different origin from anylife we know of.
And this is one of them, a Life form uses arsenic instead of phosphorus.

It is such a big deal because it might be able to prove life have started more than once. If life is able to start more than once then Aliens is just just a fiction any more. Sciencist is start going to treat outter space life even more seriously.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I just can't seem to push it beyond the scope of interesting... If I knew what could COME of it, it might interest me more

It might be able to prove life have started more than one time on Earth, therefore it is very possible life can start any where in space

True, except that the life form doesn't show the normal signs of being from earth. Inhabitanmts of earth typically can SOMETIMES breathe arsenic, but arsenic in this case is being abosorbed to become the body.

I meant if we knew more than simply it's a new life form and life might exist elsewhere... But the basics usually don't interest me in any case...

 

[Exort]

I just can't seem to push it beyond the scope of interesting... If I knew what could COME of it, it might interest me more

It might be able to prove life have started more than one time on Earth, therefore it is very possible life can start any where in space

True, except that the life form doesn't show the normal signs of being from earth. Inhabitanmts of earth typically can SOMETIMES breathe arsenic, but arsenic in this case is being abosorbed to become the body.

I meant if we knew more than simply it's a new life form and life might exist elsewhere... But the basics usually don't interest me in any case...

Yea, because arsenic is too alike phosphorus and life will treat it as phosphorus, and that is why it is a poison. But from what I have read, the bact is build part of it's self out of arsenic. It is not just a matter of breathing in it.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I just can't seem to push it beyond the scope of interesting... If I knew what could COME of it, it might interest me more

It might be able to prove life have started more than one time on Earth, therefore it is very possible life can start any where in space

True, except that the life form doesn't show the normal signs of being from earth. Inhabitanmts of earth typically can SOMETIMES breathe arsenic, but arsenic in this case is being abosorbed to become the body.

I meant if we knew more than simply it's a new life form and life might exist elsewhere... But the basics usually don't interest me in any case...

Yea, because arsenic is too alike phosphorus and life will treat it as phosphorus, and that is why it is a poison. But from what I have read, the bact is build part of it's self out of arsenic. It is not just a matter of breathing in it.

Isn't that what I said? That is goes beyond breathing it? Like, in almost the same words?

except that the life form doesn't show the normal signs of being from earth. Inhabitanmts of earth typically can SOMETIMES breathe arsenic, but arsenic in this case is being abosorbed to become the body.

 

[Yoshisummons]

It just confirmed that there are more than 8 different possibilities of alien life out there, 2 base pair DNA coding, 3base pair DNA(us), 2base with silicon based lifeforms, 3base with silicon based, the rest is just reversing the information gained from "Adenine Thymine" and simple reverses. With a lot of chemicals that have similar properties there are a lot of replacements for other chemicals we use.

Was I shocked? No
Was I disappointed? No
Is that because I didn't fall for the hype? Yes

 

[drdamo]

New? That we hide behind our own inability to spot it sooner doesn't make it magically appear out of nowhere, it just makes us a little less blind.
And the theory was already on the table ages ago, that hypothetically you need any liquid to form life, not just H2O. So its not all that special scientifically speaking.
Still the proof is kinda nice, gives the people with the money facts to pay for more research!

 

[Rainforce]

so.... every time they find something in that category they will make such a hassle about it? I mean, we have the bacteria/fungi in chernobyl, the life that surrounds black smokers in the sea, etc..
this is INDEED. NOTHING. NEW. (at least not really)

Im sad that they pulled this off.

If you study Bio you will know how big of a deal this is.
I think people is missing the point.
It is not where the bact is found.
It is what the bact is made of.
arsenic is posion to almost all Life form because it is too alike phosphorus, because our body would treat it like phosphorus but it doesn't function the same way.

However, there have be thoery on if life can be start again in Outterspace nothing prevent from starting again on Earth.
Therefore, lot of people start finding life that is different enough that might have a different origin from anylife we know of.
And this is one of them, a Life form uses arsenic instead of phosphorus.

It is such a big deal because it might be able to prove life have started more than once. If life is able to start more than once then Aliens is just just a fiction any more. Sciencist is start going to treat outter space life even more seriously.

I know very well how big of a deal this is, but it was totally possible and even very likely (yes, it's about the whole "life started more then once" thing), and then they said "woooo we found something awesome and totally new and tell you tomorrow!"(like all the times before btw) just to say that "yeah, we just found another slightly abnormal life form on our planet."
wake me when they found it on another planet in a more complex organism.
Until then Im busy being grumpy and unimpressed.^^
although, I must admit, I expected it to be a bit more stable chemical.

 

[Rofl-Mayo]

I was hoping for something a bit more than... bacteria. That is boring and probably isn't worth as much attention as it's been receiving.

 

[Denamic]

With this, the religious arguments about Earth's conditions being 'perfect for life' is destroyed.
Of course, they won't understand this and will keep using the argument.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I find it fascinating. Though the life out there that results from this will be poisonous to us.

It is as amazing as anything on Earth could be discovered.

What we've been shown is that life is not you need these four things in just the right quantities otherwise fuck you.

This has potentially increased the number of possible life-supporting planets by a million fold, and a likewise increase in the possibility of finding sentient life.

And mind you, this discovery has been on our own planet. This just shows that instead of pie-in-the-sky goals of going to Mars right now, we ought to be exploring our oceans and lakes more. Who knows? There might be a primitive city of cuttlefish somewhere out in the Pacific, or penguin-like fish in the Arctic.

We simply don't know. This discovery proves it thousands of miles by far that we still don't know everything Earth, let alone extraterrestial locations.

There is no reason why we can't do both. But seeing as Obama screwed NASA over. I'm believing that the idea of China becoming the conquerors of space and the Universe, is becoming more likely. I laughed at the Empire Earth expansion that had China as the space powerhouse on Mars, but not now.

Of course Obama thinks space exploration is a bunch of hooey. He thinks it is more important to spend money on programs and businesses that will fail. Which will end up costing us more money after the next Presidential election when the Conservative President will have to spend more money to reverse and fix the errors of Obama. If he gets re-elected with how disastrous a job he has done, then I will know for sure that the majority of voters are just mindless drones.

 

[Thedayrecker]

No nuclear lasers? Awwww...

 

[muckinscavitch]

I could see this as boring if I didn't know anything about it.

But, for those who don't know much about biochemistry and chemistry of the main group elements, it is quite impressive that As is replacing P in its biochemical processes. It makes sense, based on size and charge alone, but As has such different chemistry than phosphorus due to issues I will not go into, that make using it quite impressive.

It really comes down to opening our minds about other types of biochemical systems that with our current knowledge, believe to be impossible...


Note: Any one who has access to research papers should look up the original paper published in Science Magazine yesterday. It is quite interesting.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

With this, the religious arguments about Earth's conditions being 'perfect for life' is destroyed.
Of course, they won't understand this and will keep using the argument.

Only the religious people that don't think and have and have a closed mind will do that. I and a majority of my family believe that it is naive to think that God created this whole universe and put life on just one little planet.

My Uncle even pointed out a passage from the Bible that shows that God most likely created life elsewhere. I don't remember the exact passage, but it's something about how Jesus, before he leaves, says that he has other flocks to attend to. And obviously, since he is leaving the Earth, that means some other planets in the Universe.

My Uncle had that passage explained to him by some prominent pastor he met with. My Uncle is a part of a group of pastors that believe that we can't really say that the world is only a certain small age, that science is most likely right about the billions of years. He used some place in the northeast of the US as proof. There is some kind of cross section of land that lets you see deep down, and you can see hundred year old tree after hundred year old tree on top of each other. When he was there, my Uncle calculated at least 35,000 years of history in that small cross section.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I don't really care. I already know there's over 9000 critters on Earth we have no idea about, and I'm pretty sure some of them run on odd things.

Now if they had found these microbes off-world I'd be incredibly interested. But they didn't. So bah.

And the search for Bigfoot and the Chupacabra go ever on. We will find them some day, some day.

 

[The Last Nomad]

I was hoping for the big announcement to be something bigger....

Although I had forgotten all about it until I saw the Question of the day...

 

[quantum mechanic]

Well, if nobody else is going to say it...

"It's life, Jim. But not as we know it."