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Biology-shattering discovery made; living bacteria made of Arsenic in a poisonous lake
Topic Started: Dec 2 2010, 12:24 PM (1,189 Views)
Yun
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Malum Malum

Blissfulystoopid
Dec 2 2010, 04:55 PM
A lot of people and writers have toyed with the idea that life could have some other basis, such as the aforementioned silicon based life in Star-Trek. While as a discovery it's SHATTERING of our perceptions, I'm rather shocked that none of these scientists had ever taken the idea seriously until it was proven.
Pretty much this. This has been such a trope even in hard sci-fi that it's hard to believe biologists never contemplated the possibility of alternative biochemistry. That doesn't mean that actually finding an example isn't big news, but still...

The funny part is for all the alt-bio ideas I've seen (swapping sulfur for oxygen, ammonia for water, silicon for carbon, etc.) swapping arsenic for phosphorous is actually one I haven't seen yet.
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Gwydd
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Eternity Awaits You and Me

This is very big, as many others have stated. The fact that we just discovered there are 3x as many stars in the visible universe as we thought there were… and that life can develop in ways we didn't even consider… means that we have so many more chances for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial life.

This is huge.
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Silverpine
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Starry Knight

*writes in my Biology textbook for future students*


C:

But seriously, this is WIN! I hope we find more LIKE this! <3 Will be on top of this story for a long while...
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Lemubaby
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(_(_( ・ω・)

What do you suppose a multi-celled organism with this genetic makeup would look like?
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b l o n d e b o n d
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Wombo Combo

Like a boss.



I heard about this yesterday. Arsenic is definitely a weird element to pick.
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The Grim Lich
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Legitimate Businessman

Gwee-Gwee-chan~
Dec 2 2010, 07:26 PM
This is very big, as many others have stated. The fact that we just discovered there are 3x as many stars in the visible universe as we thought there were… and that life can develop in ways we didn't even consider… means that we have so many more chances for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial life.

This is huge.
Yeah, it finally explains Rep. Boehner's skin color. :awe:

Seriously, though, this is fricking AWESOME.
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Adnarel
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I'd rather be outside.

We've found life that uses Sulfur already instead of Oxygen, and now these Arsenic creatures. What's left to find is Silicon-based life. There are already creatures that use Silicon extensively, but their core biology isn't built with Silicon as a backbone.
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Artemis
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Plus Ultra

To be fair, they were originally phosphorous-based. Although that doesn't change the fact that the usage of arsenic in DNA-building means that there could be organisms elsewhere that never needed phosphorous at all.

...Arsenic is pretty random, though.
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UltaFlame
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Thanks Poui.

well they were apparently found inside an Arsenic pool or something.

I think I'm wrong but I'm too lazy to go check the source.
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The Grim Lich
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Legitimate Businessman

They were found in what is pretty much the most toxic piece of land in California.
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Gilgamesh
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solbowz Aurarius

Even bacteria love LA, it seems.
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Artemis
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Plus Ultra

It's still random... Why not sulfur? Or some other element? Hm. It could gave been a different sort of bacteria, in a different location. But instead it was specifically this bacteria, with arsenic, in the arsenic pool.
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Silverpine
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Starry Knight

Quote:
 
Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.


From this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101202140622.htm

Less vague than other articles I've read about this discovery that I've read so far...
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Yun
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Malum Malum

Artemis
Dec 4 2010, 01:01 AM
It's still random... Why not sulfur? Or some other element? Hm. It could gave been a different sort of bacteria, in a different location. But instead it was specifically this bacteria, with arsenic, in the arsenic pool.
Arsenic is in the same column on the periodic table as phosphorus. This means their atomic structures are very similar. Sort of like how sodium, potassium, and lithium all have similar properties (they're all metals, all corrode easily, all go kablooey in water, etc.) This is, in fact, the reason arsenic is poisonous, because most lifeforms mistake arsenic for phosphorous, which, to use a scientific term, [radio edit]s stuff up.

This is also the reason silicon (same column as carbon) and sulfur (same column as oxygen) are the most commonly proposed elements in alternative biochemistry.
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The Grim Lich
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Legitimate Businessman

...man, now all of a sudden my mind has gone the weird and somewhat-less-biologically-plausible route of cyanide-based life.
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Karasu
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gah all this talk of aresenic based life forms has my mind jumping (incorrectly) to the movie Evolution.....and i caught myself thinking "what would happen if i went over and dumped a ton of head and shoulders into the spring where said bacteria lives?"

it is late and i am way too tired to think properly about arsenic life. also what to do at a press conference about these little beasties!
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