Posted: May 29, 2011 4:39 pm
So I came across this article months ago:
http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life
Then today I read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
So the TL;DR...
We have found bacteria that uses arsenic in its genome as opposed to the elements we are familiar with. If this is true it would change all the laws of life as we currently have written because according to thermodynamics having an arsenic backbone would not be feasible at all, it would just spontaneously combust everytime the rogue molecule was formed by chance (which is leading other to believe there is another piece of the puzzle. NASA is obvi pumped because they say it opens a whole new door for extraterrestrial life, and rightly so. Not everyone is satisfied though, three major critiques (which I will just copy/paste from the 2nd article)
1.One of Wolfe-Simon’s loudest critics, who accused her in December of sloppy lab work, is zoologist Rosie Redfield of the University of British Columbia. In the batch of eight critiques released Friday morning, Redfield flatly states that Wolfe-Simon’s dishes of bacteria were contaminated and that the scientist failed to properly purify the bacteria’s DNA .
2. Another critique, from Steve Benner at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, points out that the arsenic compounds supposedly employed by the bizarre bacteria would fall apart in DNA — not hold together as required.
3. A third attack highlights other microbes that can live on tiny amounts of phosphorus, and argues that Wolfe-Simon’s bacteria were probably doing the same.
So keep your eyes open. If there are updates in the matter I will post them here.
http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life
Then today I read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
So the TL;DR...
We have found bacteria that uses arsenic in its genome as opposed to the elements we are familiar with. If this is true it would change all the laws of life as we currently have written because according to thermodynamics having an arsenic backbone would not be feasible at all, it would just spontaneously combust everytime the rogue molecule was formed by chance (which is leading other to believe there is another piece of the puzzle. NASA is obvi pumped because they say it opens a whole new door for extraterrestrial life, and rightly so. Not everyone is satisfied though, three major critiques (which I will just copy/paste from the 2nd article)
1.One of Wolfe-Simon’s loudest critics, who accused her in December of sloppy lab work, is zoologist Rosie Redfield of the University of British Columbia. In the batch of eight critiques released Friday morning, Redfield flatly states that Wolfe-Simon’s dishes of bacteria were contaminated and that the scientist failed to properly purify the bacteria’s DNA .
2. Another critique, from Steve Benner at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, points out that the arsenic compounds supposedly employed by the bizarre bacteria would fall apart in DNA — not hold together as required.
3. A third attack highlights other microbes that can live on tiny amounts of phosphorus, and argues that Wolfe-Simon’s bacteria were probably doing the same.
So keep your eyes open. If there are updates in the matter I will post them here.