More Important Than Soccer: Completely new type of DNA discovered
beetnemesis Send a noteboard - 02/12/2010 04:48:51 PM
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. 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. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. 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. And that's without counting yesterday's announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor trillion of Earths. [NOS—In Dutch]
Suck it, Qatar! But seriously, how cool is this?
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. 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. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. 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. And that's without counting yesterday's announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor trillion of Earths. [NOS—In Dutch]
Suck it, Qatar! But seriously, how cool is this?
I amuse myself.
More Important Than Soccer: Completely new type of DNA discovered
02/12/2010 04:48:51 PM
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that is TOTALLY inappropriate
02/12/2010 04:58:47 PM
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Crazy awesome.
02/12/2010 05:07:49 PM
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So the movie Evolution was real!
02/12/2010 05:24:16 PM
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Wow. *NM*
02/12/2010 05:32:08 PM
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Dang. I thought it was naturally occurring. Missed the part where it was grown in a lab.
03/12/2010 02:16:16 AM
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I won't pretend I know enough about biology to understand the impact of this
02/12/2010 06:26:24 PM
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It's like finding a type of rock that eats laughter
02/12/2010 06:51:15 PM
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... without coming down and dealing with the nasty stomach cramps.
02/12/2010 09:49:06 PM
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I think I had an ex once that was made of arsenic. *NM*
02/12/2010 07:10:57 PM
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So, is it an alien?
02/12/2010 07:19:49 PM
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They haven't mentioned anything saying it's not from Earth, I think
02/12/2010 08:03:44 PM
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The bacteria in question is part of a known lineage
02/12/2010 08:07:34 PM
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see my note below
02/12/2010 08:13:35 PM
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Maybe
02/12/2010 08:23:16 PM
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So, apparently, this bacteria doesn't use arsneic for its DNA in its natural state?
02/12/2010 08:06:02 PM
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While awesome, it's a bit of a problem.
02/12/2010 09:04:22 PM
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True, but I'm not "looking for" anything in particular, so I just like it *NM*
02/12/2010 11:09:21 PM
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Less cool a revelation than I was hoping, but certainly not a complete disappointment. *NM*
02/12/2010 10:35:33 PM
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I don't understand why this is such a big deal. It always seemed common sense to me that there are
02/12/2010 10:40:22 PM
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I think it just makes them happy that they can widen the parameters for life-sustaining planets. *NM*
02/12/2010 11:00:31 PM
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yah. it's one thing to theorize, another thing to find something to hold true.
02/12/2010 11:10:23 PM
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It's much more than an educated guess.
02/12/2010 11:59:18 PM
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You can't "know" from this distance.
03/12/2010 03:13:05 AM
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Why not?
03/12/2010 04:42:15 AM
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obviously you have not learned to look at the back label on the car *NM*
04/12/2010 07:04:42 PM
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Yes, we can.
04/12/2010 06:04:48 PM
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The problem probably is with me.
04/12/2010 08:00:56 PM
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No, they aren't.
04/12/2010 10:01:25 PM
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Are you baiting me to bait you?
05/12/2010 06:41:49 AM
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I'm just carrying on a conversation.
05/12/2010 07:26:39 AM
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Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
05/12/2010 07:08:04 PM
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Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
05/12/2010 07:56:43 PM
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Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
06/12/2010 03:15:37 AM
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I made my students watch the NASA channel for over two hours today
02/12/2010 11:11:40 PM
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