NASA Finds New Arsenic-Based Life Form in California

[Taxious]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... life-form/

... researchers have coaxed a microbe to build itself with arsenic in the place of phosphorus, an unprecedented substitution of one of the six essential ingredients of life. The bacterium appears to have incorporated a form of arsenic into its cellular machinery, and even its DNA

I'm not a big chemistry buff, but this sounds pretty ground breaking. I'm excited to see what it will lead to!

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Totally badass. I'd heard the theories of silicon in place of carbon and even liquid methane in place of water in potential organisms, but not arsenic > phosphate. Then again I don't exactly keep up with biology research.

Still one hell of a precedent, organic matter using an element we didn't previously think would work in that capacity. I'm looking forward to where this research goes.

[Ddrak]

Pretty exciting, but "finds" is hardly the right word there.

Dd

[Bahd Zoolander]

http://xkcd.com/829/

[Embar Angylwrath]

Minor correction Tax. Its not really arsenic based life. The life is still carbon based, it just uses aresenic in place of another non-carbon element (phosphorous I think?)