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Nasa found Aliens

OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
edited December 2010 in Strut Central
Unsurprisingly in California.
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.

No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. 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.


http://gizmodo.com/5704158/
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  Comments

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    Edit: ignore me, ranting without reading the OG post.

    Doh.
  • selperfugeselperfuge 1,165 Posts
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/eureka/article7040864.ece

    ^^ good article

    crap article:

    Gizmodo blogger Jesus Diaz threw more coal on the fire, boldly claiming to have the inside scoop. "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," Diaz writes, citing a Dutch media outlet. Found in California's toxic Mono Lake, the bacteria is reportedly made of arsenic???not phosphorous???meaning that it "doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth,"

    didn't know fatass bloggeurs rolled deep in the mariana trench or had total omniscience.
  • Options
    Unknown
    There's nothing new here. Haven't these scientists ever met any Yankees fans?
  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    nzshadow said:
    Edit: ignore me, ranting without reading the OG post.

    Doh.

    No, I think you were right. Always amazes me that NASA gets excited by possible traces of, say, water on the moon/Mars etc because it means that life may exist. The possibiity that water / phosphorous / suphur etc may not be prerequisite for all life forms seems to have passed them by.
  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    My brain read this as Nas found Aliens which excited and troubled me in equal measures. Anyway, carry on.
  • TheKindCromangTheKindCromang 1,463 Posts
    Junior said:
    My brain read this as Nas found Aliens which excited and troubled me in equal measures. Anyway, carry on.

    Ha ha! I read it and thought it said "Nas found ATLiens" and I was like, "Really? He'd never heard it before?"
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    "Niggaz play with PlayStations, they build space stations......."
  • onetetonetet 1,754 Posts
    anyone else watch the press conference today? I had to turn it off after about 20 minutes despite being interested in the matieral. The head researcher was unbearably smug, and all the other scientists looked like they flunked out of a class on how to be dynamic on live television.
  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    After reading a few articles about this I believe they mean "alien" as in unlike anything else we've seen to date as opposed to "alien" as in from outer space or another planet/galaxy.

    The fact that a new/different strain of bacteria exists in A POISON LAKE, and is unlike any bacteria discovered on our planet up until now is not nearly as exciting as they make it out to be.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,166 Posts
    This is pretty amazing stuff to me.

    This form of life is completely independent of every form of life we have studied to date.



    It implies that life has been sparked into functional organisms multiple times (not necessarily on Earth) - which is no mean feat. It implies that evolution has happened across multiple strings, and that there may be completely unpredictable forms of life out there that have developed.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    We quickly need to splice this bacteria's genes with a chicken and start serving it to people.

    What could go wrong?
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I don't know what they teach kids today, but I was taught that life could only exist in hospitable environments. Volcano vents and the South Pole were considered way to hot or cold for life.
    Now we know life can survive in most any environment. Above boiling, below freezing, with no light, no oxygen...
    That life exists elsewhere and we are determined to contaminate it is a given.

    This story, about life in the earths crust deep under the Atlantic -deeper than it was thought possible for life to exist, also just came out this week, or last.

    "The organisms have been known to feed off methane and benzene in order to survive; a similar feeding pattern we see at oil well and contaminated soil. Several species settle there and reproduce at a temperature of 102 degrees Celsius.

    Read more: http://scienceray.com/biology/life-discovered-deep-within-the-earths-crust/#ixzz16zm9P2yI"
  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    ketan said:
    This is pretty amazing stuff to me.

    This form of life is completely independent of every form of life we have studied to date.



    It implies that life has been sparked into functional organisms multiple times (not necessarily on Earth) - which is no mean feat. It implies that evolution has happened across multiple strings, and that there may be completely unpredictable forms of life out there that have developed.

    I'm no biologist but can't it also mean that an independent life form exists in this "Poison Lake" that is physically unlike any other environment on our planet? That this particular form can't exist anywhere else besides in this "poisonous" environment might explain why it's never been seen anywhere else on earth before.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,166 Posts
    ^ You may be right that this particular form of life couldn't exist elsewhere on Earth but I think the more important point is that it's based on arsenic rather than phosphorus. Evolutionary biologists think ALL life in our "family tree" (evolved over billions and billions of years - word to Carl Sagan) is based on an initial RNA spontaneously coming together, surviving and mutating/evolving via natural selection thereafter. Everything. This thing implies that the initial spontaneous development of something (like RNA) that survived and started to evolve into something more highly organized and functional (like bacteria) happened more than once. And if it happened twice, then it has probably happened many, many times.

    The implications are kind of staggering. For example, this really puts a wedgie in the Creationist theory, as I understand it. That even if humans evolved from simpler forms of life, it was exquisitely designed and planned that way to result in dumb Bieber-loving humans (who incidentally will soon be ravaged by an appocalypse for doing things like loving the Bieber). I think this is called the Watchmaker analogy.

    We have also been basing much of our search for life on other planets on the assumption that phosphorus is essential (I think). This implies that other places in the universe (and on Earth) that we didn't think could create or sustain life might do.

    I'm not an expert on this stuff, though. I could be wrong!
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Our assumptions are in a dire need of shifting from egocentric based observation to logical speculation, from it's only what I can conceive until otherwise can be proven to it's all out there and we just need to catch up to speed.

    b/w

    Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Think He's the Center of the Universe.
  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    ketan said:
    ^ You may be right that this particular form of life couldn't exist elsewhere on Earth but I think the more important point is that it's based on arsenic rather than phosphorus. Evolutionary biologists think ALL life in our "family tree" (evolved over billions and billions of years - word to Carl Sagan) is based on an initial RNA spontaneously coming together, surviving and mutating/evolving via natural selection thereafter. Everything. This thing implies that the initial spontaneous development of something (like RNA) that survived and started to evolve into something more highly organized and functional (like bacteria) happened more than once. And if it happened twice, then it has probably happened many, many times.

    The implications are kind of staggering. For example, this really puts a wedgie in the Creationist theory, as I understand it. That even if humans evolved from simpler forms of life, it was exquisitely designed and planned that way to result in dumb Bieber-loving humans (who incidentally will soon be ravaged by an appocalypse for doing things like loving the Bieber). I think this is called the Watchmaker analogy.

    We have also been basing much of our search for life on other planets on the assumption that phosphorus is essential (I think). This implies that other places in the universe (and on Earth) that we didn't think could create or sustain life might do.

    I'm not an expert on this stuff, though. I could be wrong!

    It's definitely fascinating....although I don't think Creationism really needs any more nails in it's coffin to be pronounced dead.

    But I'm not one to think the outrageous before exploring all the possible 'common sense" answers....This may just be a life form that has been around the same amount of time as all the others but was rendered close to extinct and only survived in this unusual/unique media.
  • fauxteurfauxteur 342 Posts
    this PBS doc Exploring Space: The Quest for Life is quite interesting



    Learn about the amazing quest for life that begins on Earth and extends into the heavens above.
  • bluesnagbluesnag 1,285 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    Our assumptions are in a dire need of shifting from egocentric based observation to logical speculation, from it's only what I can conceive until otherwise can be proven to it's all out there and we just need to catch up to speed.

    b/w

    Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Think He's the Center of the Universe.

    Whenever you comment on science it seems like you don't understand it. Scientists don't think they completely understand everything, and they understand that their theories will change as they learn more. Biologists are excited about this discovery because it means things are even more interesting and complicated than they originally understood it to be. It means they will all have jobs because there are things that need to be understood better.

    No scientist thinks that their theory is complete. They all know that they don't understand everything. That's why it is exciting.
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    bluesnag said:
    HarveyCanal said:
    Our assumptions are in a dire need of shifting from egocentric based observation to logical speculation, from it's only what I can conceive until otherwise can be proven to it's all out there and we just need to catch up to speed.

    b/w

    Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Think He's the Center of the Universe.

    Whenever you comment on science it seems like you don't understand it. Scientists don't think they completely understand everything, and they understand that their theories will change as they learn more. Biologists are excited about this discovery because it means things are even more interesting and complicated than they originally understood it to be. It means they will all have jobs because there are things that need to be understood better.

    No scientist thinks that their theory is complete. They all know that they don't understand everything. That's why it is exciting.

    To which I would add that it is speculation that is ego-based, not observation.

    b/w

    Monkeys already have brains.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Mono is not a poison lake.
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    Flomotion said:
    nzshadow said:
    Edit: ignore me, ranting without reading the OG post.

    Doh.

    No, I think you were right. Always amazes me that NASA gets excited by possible traces of, say, water on the moon/Mars etc because it means that life may exist. The possibiity that water / phosphorous / suphur etc may not be prerequisite for all life forms seems to have passed them by.

    um, NASA gets excited about traces of water in space because while you are correct that water/phosphorus/sulfur may not be a prerequisite for life, they are prerequisites for organisms/life as far as we can detect. until this bacteria, there was no life on earth that could survive without phosphorus.
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    ketan said:
    This is pretty amazing stuff to me.

    This form of life is completely independent of every form of life we have studied to date.



    It implies that life has been sparked into functional organisms multiple times (not necessarily on Earth) - which is no mean feat. It implies that evolution has happened across multiple strings, and that there may be completely unpredictable forms of life out there that have developed.

    completely independent? the bacterium has shown the ability to replace phosphates with arsenates. its growth is significantly slowed by this process and when phosphates are reintroduced, its growth goes back to being normal. its exciting, dont get me wrong, but its more three card monty than an independent form of life.
  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    Mono is not a poison lake.

    Would you eat a fish caught in Mono Lake??

    b/w

    No fish can live in it's waters and that's why it's referred to as "poison".
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    this guy does a great guy of breaking it down.

    http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/12/02/life_with_arsenic_whod_have_thought.php
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,166 Posts
    edulus said:
    ketan said:
    This is pretty amazing stuff to me.

    This form of life is completely independent of every form of life we have studied to date.



    It implies that life has been sparked into functional organisms multiple times (not necessarily on Earth) - which is no mean feat. It implies that evolution has happened across multiple strings, and that there may be completely unpredictable forms of life out there that have developed.

    completely independent? the bacterium has shown the ability to replace phosphates with arsenates. its growth is significantly slowed by this process and when phosphates are reintroduced, its growth goes back to being normal. its exciting, dont get me wrong, but its more three card monty than an independent form of life.

    yeah, you're right - i was being over-excited with "completely independent". so if i understand you right, this is something that they think mutated from something already evolved?
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    That's not what today's work has turned up, though - but it's probably the next best thing. What this group was looking for were hypothetical organisms that have learned to use arsenic instead of phosphorus. There are environments that are much richer in arsenic (and its corresponding arsenate salts) than they are in phosphorus. And arsenic is right under phosphorus in the periodic table, and forms similar sorts of compounds (albeit with rather different behavior), so. . .maybe it could substitute? Well, they didn't find any native arsenic-users - but they did force some into existence. They took a strain of bacteria from such an environment (Mono Lake sediments) and starved it of phosphate while providing it plenty of arsenate. The colonies that grew under these conditions were picked out and grown under even higher arsenate concentrations, and the process was continued stage after stage.

    The end result appears to be bacteria that have incorporated arsenate into their metabolism. They still have phosphate in them, but not enough to keep everything running on a phosphate basis. Some parts have switched over to arsenate, without gumming up the works completely. That surprises me quite a bit - I really wouldn't have thought that things could be pushed that far. After all, in higher organisms, it's that arsenate-for-phosphate switch that's responsible for arsenic's reputation as a poison. Eventually, some key enzyme systems can't handle the switch and cease to function.

    But not in these bacteria. They look different and grow more slowly than their phosphate-saturated brethren, and they'd clearly like ditch the arsenic at the first opportunity (add phosphate and they start growing more vigorously). But they're getting by, presumably with just enough phosphate to hold things together. (Have they hit the wall, one wonders?) A number of physical methods all point in the same direction, to arsenate being incorporated into their biomolecules. We still don't know where most of it goes, or how the various phosphate-manipulating enzymes manage to still work, but working out those details will keep a lot of people busy for quite a while.
  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    NASA trying to compete with J. Craig Venter for press coverage.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,166 Posts
    edulus said:
    That's not what today's work has turned up, though - but it's probably the next best thing. What this group was looking for were hypothetical organisms that have learned to use arsenic instead of phosphorus. There are environments that are much richer in arsenic (and its corresponding arsenate salts) than they are in phosphorus. And arsenic is right under phosphorus in the periodic table, and forms similar sorts of compounds (albeit with rather different behavior), so. . .maybe it could substitute? Well, they didn't find any native arsenic-users - but they did force some into existence. They took a strain of bacteria from such an environment (Mono Lake sediments) and starved it of phosphate while providing it plenty of arsenate. The colonies that grew under these conditions were picked out and grown under even higher arsenate concentrations, and the process was continued stage after stage.

    The end result appears to be bacteria that have incorporated arsenate into their metabolism. They still have phosphate in them, but not enough to keep everything running on a phosphate basis. Some parts have switched over to arsenate, without gumming up the works completely. That surprises me quite a bit - I really wouldn't have thought that things could be pushed that far. After all, in higher organisms, it's that arsenate-for-phosphate switch that's responsible for arsenic's reputation as a poison. Eventually, some key enzyme systems can't handle the switch and cease to function.

    But not in these bacteria. They look different and grow more slowly than their phosphate-saturated brethren, and they'd clearly like ditch the arsenic at the first opportunity (add phosphate and they start growing more vigorously). But they're getting by, presumably with just enough phosphate to hold things together. (Have they hit the wall, one wonders?) A number of physical methods all point in the same direction, to arsenate being incorporated into their biomolecules. We still don't know where most of it goes, or how the various phosphate-manipulating enzymes manage to still work, but working out those details will keep a lot of people busy for quite a while.

    oh wow - that's a very different scenario than i imagined from the earlier (brief) press reports earlier today.



    what are some other Cosmos-esque tunes?
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    Venter will create a synthetic bacterium and replace all the carbons with silicons, sulfurs with selenium, oxygens with sulfurs, nitrogens with phosphorus, and phosphorus with arsenic, just because he can.
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