NASA Finds New Life (This Afternoon) 405
While the official 2pm conference should have more answers, most of the internet has decided that NASA has discovered a completely new life form based on arsenic instead of the more traditional organic materials. We'll know more in a few hours.
It's the Shadow Biosphere Lake (Score:5, Informative)
If you were asked to speculate about the form extra-terrestrial life on Mars might take, which geomicrobial phenomenon might you select as a model system, assuming that life on Mars would be 'primitive'? Give your reasons.
At the end of my senior year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1968, I took Professor Ehrlich’s final for his Geomicrobiology course. The above question beckoned to me like the Sirens to Odysseus, for if I answered, it would take so much time and thought that I would never get around to the exam’s other essay questions and consequently, would be "shipwrecked" by flunking the course. So, I passed it up.With this 41-year perspective in mind, this manuscript is now submitted to Professor Ehrlich for (belated) "extra-credit." R.S. Oremland
This has been an interesting topic in sci-fi [wikipedia.org], I recall an X-Files that revolved around silicon based life.
I certainly hope that we get more details than this teaser (all other news articles seem to point back to Gizmodo). From the sound of this leak I can't tell if the DNA itself is foreign or if it's made of the same Adenine, Thymine, Guanine and Cytosine with similar hydrogen bonds or if the DNA is similar but different in functionality or if it doesn't create proteins and RNA the same way or if phosphorus component is just switched with arsenic (two very similar elements prebiotic chemically) or if the whole bacteria is made of arsenic. At what point in the chain of DNA to organism does this thing seriously differ? The Gizmodo article is painfully weak on detail.
Re:It's the Shadow Biosphere Lake (Score:5, Informative)
According to an article by the official Flemish news service [deredactie.be], the beans were already spilled this afternoon in a documentary shown by a Dutch broadcast service (VPRO) on this topic. It's indeed about Mono lake and Felisa Wolfe-Simon. The article also contains a small film fragment in which they confirms that it's indeed about a life form that uses arsenic instead of phosphor (it also contains some sound bytes from the researcher, in English).
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First time I heard of Mono Lake was via Mark Twain:
http://www.monobasinresearch.org/historical/twain.htm [monobasinresearch.org]
Sounds like a really weird place.
Re:It's the Shadow Biosphere Lake (Score:5, Informative)
Just do us a favor and be careful with your campfires and such that time of year. A lot of us get tired of having half our damn county burn down every summer because of tourists being careless with cigarette butts and such. Dry grass burns fast. Just remember that and you should have a dandy vacation. Enjoy the Sierra Nevada when you get here. =)
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Its first communication: "Ugly bags of mostly water!"
"To reach out to new life and new civilizations. To baldly go where no one has ever gone before."
I don't understand this; the announcement that there was going to be a press conference today was posted a few days ago. Why not wait until NASA announces it to post today's story?
Re:It's the Shadow Biosphere Lake (Score:5, Funny)
To baldly go where no one has ever gone before.
That explains Picard, but what about curly Kirk?
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That would be the "Ugly bags of mostly water!" comment.
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"I recall an X-Files that revolved around silicon based life"
No kill I.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_Dark [wikipedia.org]
Soon, another guard is killed and a circulation pump, vital to the colony's main reactor, is stolen. Unfortunately, the entire unit is obsolete, and no replacement is available. The original component must be found within 48 hours or the reactor will fail, rendering the mine uninhabitable. Scotty improvises a temporary replacement pump. Spock suggests that the creature might be a silicon-
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"Uh, the second one. Zillifone. Next question."
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for an announcement this big they would have to have found adenosine triadenide.
Adenosine Triarsenate? (ATA)
Great (Score:2)
I can't wait for the public to give a collective yawn over this exciting news. I've been trying to educate people at work today about why this is such a big deal, but their responses have generally been "oh, more bacteria...yay."
-_-;;
Re:Great (Score:5, Interesting)
Combined from two other posts I made:
If what's being reported is accurate, they've discovered a life form whose DNA was previously thought to be completely, unequivocally, no-exceptions impossible. Not just "we haven't found it", but impossible.
The point is that it means that life could exist in ways we haven't even conceived of yet. It's not the finding itself that's important, but rather the implications of having hard confirmed evidence that what we have long thought was wrong.
Re:How much you ask (Score:4, Informative)
It is bigger than that. Firstly, arsenic is more reactive and as such the backbone of the DNA would be very unstable. That's a huge problem - how did this organism solve it? That could be a second Nobel prize right there.
Also, although adenosine will bind arsenate to make an arsenic based AMP analog (AMA?), it is the final phosphate from ATP that gets bound in the backbone. You have to have lots of machinery altered to get ATP built with arsenate on the terminus and transport that arsenate enzymaticly into the growing DNA chain. It's been about 25 years since I did biochemistry, but there's about a hundred "holy crap" things about this discovery. Each of those little pieces of the discovery will get you the cover of Science or Nature if you unlock it. Really, this is a super-cool finding. Short of putting ET on the dais I don't know what would be more shocking.
Can we finally, finally, finally (Score:5, Insightful)
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In theory, life on this planet is an absurd idea. Think about it: we're on the fringes of the galaxy, out in the boondocks...one of the emptiest, coldest, and darkest part. If anything, life would be most likely to exist closer to the core.
We're not special...we're the exception.
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I'd argue that life is more likely where we are for the simple reason that this is where we exist. I would have thought there's a lot more potential for encountering harmful radiation, among other things, closer to the core.
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That's also assuming that certain lifeforms wouldn't be resistant (or possibly even immune) to such radiation.
Exactly the kind of thing this discovery means...we now have hard evidence in front of us that what we thought were the rules were completely wrong.
Re:Can we finally, finally, finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep going with that line of reasoning - the next step would be lifeforms that are dependent on it.
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Re:Can we finally, finally, finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, now...
Galactic suburbia isn't quite so bad. Nice and stable. Helps to keep those planetary orbits from changing too much or too quickly. I mean a good wallop a long time ago to create the moon is all well and good. But after a while you just want to settle down. We really don't to get pelted with comets and planetoids all that often.
Things are a lot tougher closer to the core. It's simply much to busy. Nearby stars bustling together. Everybody taking these whiplash commutes around the central black hole. Pesky neighboring stars who keep perturbing your Oort cloud sending debris down on you regularly. Many young stars just cannot handle it. Oh they seem successful; the get nice and big. But they just explode. And let me tell you, you just don't want to live where you could get shot up every few million years or so.
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> If anything, life would be most likely to exist closer to the core.
Things are a little too exciting close to the core. It's better out here where we can get a few billion years of peace and quiet.
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In theory, life on this planet is an absurd idea.
Why?
Are you saying that in theory, life is unlikely?
Are you saying that in theory, life is unlikely here?
What theory actually says this?
Think about it: we're on the fringes of the galaxy, out in the boondocks...one of the emptiest, coldest, and darkest part.
Well, no, not really. We're pretty close to a reasonably warm star. Given the evidence, if seems that our distance from that star is more important than its distance to other stars.
If anything, life would be most likely to exist closer to the core.
Why?
What theory says that being in an area with higher star density would be more conducive to life?
I can formulate several theories to explain why being close to the "core" is worse:
Too much r
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For that matter, nothing that I know of in the Bible precludes the existence of life elsewhere, man's arrogant interpretations of it do.
Possibly to be streamed live here (Score:2)
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html [nasa.gov]
But I don't know for sure.
Contradictory statements (Score:3)
NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth.
This makes it seem as if extraterrestrial life was found. But this was found in Mono Lake, California? So is it Life, as in living? ore life as in "was" living? I'll be tuning in at the conference.
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The point was that it means that life could exist in ways we haven't even conceived of yet. It's not the finding itself that's important, but rather confirmation that we don't know dick. The confirmation of such a thing widely expands the possibility of finding life elsewhere, because it is a direct example of how much we could potentially have wrong.
Again, it's not the finding itself that's important, but rather the implications of this type of discovery.
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I could have told you before this discovery that we don't know dick.
We pat ourselves on the back, thinking we are so advanced, and yet we have entire classes of people stealing money from those who work to give to those who don't want to, while the genuinely needy and helpless often go without any kind of aid and have to eat garbage and live in cardboard shacks. We engage in wars over really trivial shit, because a few tyrants at the top in each respective country don't like each other very much.
We certainl
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It's life, flogger, but not as we know it.
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the environment is mono lake is so different (and hostile to life as we know it) that it might as well be ET.
Re:Contradictory statements (Score:5, Funny)
the environment is mono lake is so different (and hostile to life as we know it) that it might as well be ET.
No, you're thinking of Los Angeles.
They did not find new life (Score:2)
Better stock up on Head & Shoulders (Score:5, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(movie) [wikipedia.org]
2 fundamental question (Score:2)
1, Do they believe in God?
2, Can we have sex with them?
(Yeah, I know, it's a bacteria.)
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1: Who cares?
2: Rule 34.
NASA? (Score:2)
I'm curious as to what NASA has to do with this, Mono Lake being in California and all.
Composition or respiration? (Score:2)
Evolution (Score:2)
From TFA it looks like there is just 1 molecule different. Could it be possible that a Phosphate got replaced by Arsenic by some environmental condition and the fact that they were poisonous to most other life it allowed them to evolve further. A bacteria got lucky it didn't die after a mutation.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats one possibility, but there is a second possibility which is what I think NASA would be so excited about if true. What if it's not a mutation in Bacteria which used Phosphorus, but a completely seperate lineage of life, with no common ancestor.
If that were true, it doesn't mean it has to be Extraterrestial, it could be direct evidence that life on Earth started at least twice, under different conditions in different places and times. It would have huge implications in terms of how likely life is to start else where in the Solar System/Galaxy/Universe if the environmental conditions are right.
Is it still carbon-based? (Score:2)
For those of us who don't know biology well, what does this really mean? What is phosphorous used for in our cells, and how does arsenic change things? Searching for "phosphorous-based life" comes up with discussiong on phosphorous, silicon, and other elements instead of *carbon*, but these new bacteria are still made of the same carbon building blocks as us, no?
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Obligatory Kent Brockman (Score:3, Interesting)
I, for one, welcome are new arsenic-based overlords.
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.
Still carbon-based (Score:2)
Re:Still carbon-based (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing to see here if it can be shown that there is a sequence of changes that can go directly from point A to point B (A being "life" -- without a firm definition, but "life" using phosphorus, and B being identical "life" using arsenic instead) where every step of the path between forms a viable chemistry that continues to be "life".
If you can't do that, then there's pretty significant reason to think that along with the handful of times life likely arose on Earth with a chemistry that *can* be linked that way to now, it arose a time using a completely different chemistry.
That latter would mean two VERY important things -- the conditions that life could arise in is a lot broader than we believe AND, if its got similar genetics and use of amino acids, that the opportunistic use of amino acids (which are known to be extremely common in space) isn't a rare thing.
This are staggering, dicipline-changing insights unless someone can show a path from A-B.
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Mission to Titan (Score:2)
Titan's surface temperature appears to be about -178C (-289F). Methane appears to be below its saturation pressure near Titan's surface; rivers and lakes of methane probably don't exist, in spite of the tantalizing analogy to water on Earth. On the other hand, scientists believe lakes of ethane exist that contain dissolved methane. Titan's methane, through continuing photochemistry, is converted to ethane, acetylene, ethylene
Bah... (Score:2)
If it's based on Arsenic, it's probably not edible...
I remember a short SF story... (Score:2)
...about a lifeform based on silicon, not carbon. Instead of exhaling carbon dioxide, they shit sand (or something like that). Anyone remember the name/author?
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For reactions, see the SyFy channel (Score:2)
Obvious follow up question (Score:2)
Are there any more arsenic lakes around the world ?
most important is whether this new life (Score:2, Insightful)
has a common ancestor with us, or if it emerged entirely separately. If it did emerge separately from the 'spark' which started our family off, then it makes it incredibly more likely that the universe is absolutely teeming with life.
If we find any signs of common ancestory, however far back they are, it would suggest that life only 'began' on this life once, and leaves open the possibility that we are on our own.
Why this is important (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking the speculation in the article at face value, and thus assuming that NASA has found an arsenic-based lifeform in a shadow biosphere on Earth, here's why it's important:
All life on Earth that we know of is related. It all uses the same basic DNA/RNA mechanisms (including the same four base pairs), uses the same specific molecules that prominently feature carbon as the basic assembly blocks of the cell, etc. To use the ever-popular car analogy, cars can look quite different from each other, but they're all still essentially made out of the same things: bolts, gears, copper wiring, etc.
Well this other kind of life is completely different. It's so different that we know it cannot possibly be related to all of the other Earth life that we've known about thus far, as there is nothing in common. That means abiogenesis (the spontaneous generation of life from precursor non-living materials) happened at least TWICE on just this one planet.
So while this isn't extra-terrestrial life, it does have all sorts of potential ramifications on the potential existence of extra-terrestrial life. Before today, it was possible to speculate that one solution to Drake's Equation was simply that spontaneous generation of life was so rare that it only happened once, ever. But if we now found that it's happened multiple times just on this one planet ... then hell, it could be happening everywhere, all the time.
Re:Why this is important (Score:4, Insightful)
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All life on Earth that we know of is related. It all uses the same basic DNA/RNA mechanisms (including the same four base pairs), uses the same specific molecules that prominently feature carbon as the basic assembly blocks of the cell, etc.
Hate to bring you down, but from everything I hear, the life isn't "arsenic-based" in the same sense that we're "carbon-based". Instead, all indications are that it's "simply" arsenic replacing phosphorus in the DNA backbone.
As a biochemist, I can almost assure you that the rest of the DNA looks the same. That is, these organisms have the same A/T/C/G DNA bases. I'd guess the (deoxy)ribose sugar part of the sugar-phosphate backbone is the same. It's just the phosphorus in the phosphate has been replaced by
Call me a pessimist, but... (Score:2)
This will change everything *in scientific circles*. It will change exactly nothing at all in real life.
Fuck, if we were to find not bacteria, but fully-fledged intelligent lifeforms, nothing would change. The vatican and a half-dozen other religions would send missionaries, and half of the world's population would look down at them because they don't have "the right DNA" and that's "against nature".
I honestly don't know what it would take to get those admittedly very natural but in this day and age a bit u
oh come on (Score:3)
or maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Man walks up to podium: *tap* *tap* *tap* "Is this thing on"
Man: "We all have 2 hours to live."
Man walks off stage.
"Scientific" press atacks again (Score:3)
Are Aliens Among Us? Sort of, NASA Says [foxnews.com]
NASA Finds Alien DNA in Californian Lake [tomsguide.com]
NASA discovery to add new 'element' to life [google.com]
Arsenic and old earth / Washington Post (Score:4, Informative)
quoting:
Organism Laboratory-adapted to Arsenic (Score:3)
From the New York Times Summary:
Scientists said Thursday that they had trained a bacterium to eat and grow on a diet of arsenic, in place of phosphorus
It seems that this organisms was adapted in the lab to substitute Arsenic for Phosphorous, and is not a naturally Arsenic-based lifeform -- and that it will still preferrentially use phosphorous when allowed any.
Just to be clear... (Score:3)
NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Reuters:
Re:I think that's a stretch. (Score:5, Funny)
No... Don't you understand?
This is bigger than NASA's ammouncement...
THE INTERNET AGREED ON SOMETHING!
Re:I think that's a stretch. (Score:4, Interesting)
This still doesn't explain the information embargo...
It does if this is being published in a respectable, peer-reviewed, scientific journal concurrent with the announcement. Scientific journals will generally provide advance copies of 'interesting' upcoming publications to members of the media, on condition that the news be embargoed until a particular time -- generally around the time that the full publication becomes accessible to the journal's readers. Journalists get advance copies so that they can start writing their articles early, so they can get quotes from relevant experts, and so that there is at least a faint hope that their coverage will be well-researched, thorough, and accurate, and bear at least a passing resemblance to the actual science being presented.
That's the right way to do a scientific announcement, by the way. (The wrong way is exemplified the Pons and Fleischmann's 'science by press conference' cold-fusion debacle, where you make the public announcement before your scientific peers have a chance to review your work.
Re:Why not wait ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not wait until 2pm before posting the article then ?
Anyone can comment on facts, but conjecture is more fun.
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Facts can be so misleading
But rumours, true or false, are often revealing!
That's a Bingo!
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In other news, Sarah Palin suggests that GizModo should be 'targeted like the Taliban!'
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Throw lots of money and weapons at them?
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Anyone can comment on facts, but conjecture is more fun.
I'll give it a shot. "NASA announces the discovery of alien life, passably human, currently tweeting from Alaska. You betcha."
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Are you sure about that? I think they probably just wanted to . . .
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But random misinformed speculation is more fun yet.
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It is passed 2pm. At least where I am. And no-one else reads slashdot anywhere else but where I am, otherwise the headline would give a time zone, wouldn't it?
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Prevents us from having an article to not read.
Re:Is it on another planet? (Score:5, Insightful)
::facepalm::
If what's being reported is accurate, they've discovered a life form whose DNA was previously thought to be completely, unequivocally, no-exceptions impossible. Not just "we haven't found it", but impossible.
HOW IS THAT NOT AWESOME???
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As far as I could tell nobody thought it was impossible, perhaps unlikely, but not impossible. There are other organisms that already use arsenic in their system, although not to this extent. Scientists have even speculated on boron and silicon as alternatives to carbon.
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I see. I'm not a biologist, but I'd never have said a life form using a different kind of chemistry for its DNA, or even a life form using something completely different than DNA would be impossible. I don't even exclude things such as life forms based on totally different physics, scales of time, scales of size, and so on. We currently don't even 100% know how our own DNA fully works and how it came into existence. So who are we to say that something else is impossible! :)
Actually it's very interesting the
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And more importantly, it would mean end of religions, unless we want to fool ourselves now on new, grandiose scale.
How do you figure? I don't recall any religions based on the tenant that arsenic-based life is impossible. Even the Catholic Church's official position on sentient alien life is that there's no reason it can't exist. It just introduces a bunch of largely philosophical questions about whether Jesus's sacrifice was just for us or for all sentient life and whether we have to start proselytizing. Read C.S. Lewis's space trilogy if you want a Christian perspective on alien life.
Re:Is it on another planet? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it would not. What an incredibly stupid comment to make.
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And more importantly, it would mean end of religions, unless we want to fool ourselves now on new, grandiose scale.
It would not end it in the least. Religion is about a person's soul, not their body. "The spirit gives life. The flesh counts for nothing."
Re:Is it on another planet? (Score:5, Insightful)
So why don't you find the idea of a god popping into existence utterly absurd?
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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. !
I found this information on another planet (a whole 1 click away!!!)
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The chance of the press release meaningfully representing the actual occurrence are slim. As has been pointed out, this is likely to be a DNA (the usual base pairs that belong to us) based organism who has replace phosphorus with arsenic. If you look at the two on the periodic table, they are chemically similar.
Yes, it's very significant. Yes it's very important, however it really appears to be 'life a
Re:Just wondering.... (Score:5, Informative)
Is carbon a deadly posion for an arsenic-based life form?
Such an arsenic-"based" life form would still be made up mostly of carbon, the arsenic would replace phosphor instead. So, carbon would be most likely harmless to them while phosphor might indeed be toxic, in a reversal of the toxicity mechanism of arsenic, which works, among other mechanisms, by replacing the phosphate groups in adenosine triphosphate.
The really interesting question is how an arsenic-based bacterium would avoid the effect of arsenic binding to sulfhydryl groups in proteins.
Re:Just wondering.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The really interesting question is how an arsenic-based bacterium would avoid the effect of arsenic binding to sulfhydryl groups in proteins.
Which brings up the question of just how different this life is. Did evolution just find a neat little way to avoid the problems with Arsenic or is the biochemistry substantially different at every level? Basically, is this just a new branch off the tree of life, or is it a completely new sapling the next field over?
Re:Just wondering.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Only if you reverse the shields polarity.
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But you'll never be able to alternate the frequencies fast enough to compensate.
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Do they have pre-announced (days in advance) press conferences "all the time" about their other findings?
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Inquire at your local mortuary. They'll fix you up with a hermetically-sealed stainless-steel coffin.
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What was a patent clerk [wikipedia.org] doing contemplating the nature of space/time?
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A quick Google for "arsenic bacteria" shows that these bacteria from lake Mono were already known to be special since they have an arsenic-based metabolism, so presumably they're already being studied by plenty of scientists.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14537-arseniceating-bacteria-rewrite-evolutionary-history.html [newscientist.com]
Of course having "DNA" (I guess it needs a new name since it's a new compond) based on arsenic raises the interest level a lot, assuming its true!