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NASA Confirms Discovery of Organism With Phosphorus-Free DNA
GNUALMAFUERTE writes "As we mentioned before, NASA's Department of Astrobiology had an important announcement to make today. It looks like Gizmodo was right. You can watch the presentation online right now. It looks like the bacteria in question uses arsenic as a phosphorus replacement in its DNA."
O wait this was already posted right?
It's life Jim, but not as we know it.
Cool.
This is neat and clearly an important discovery and all, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit disappointed.
made of arsenic.
But... the future refused to change.
Yawn, so when do they go after aliens? I mean come on it would be about time now that we got us some alien babes!
The question from USA Today about not pulling E.T. out of a hat makes me depressed. I doubt that if there was an actual extraterrestrial life form it would be put on stage. At best we'd get autopsy pictures after they kill it from running tests.
I just don't see the need for a special press conference, since the general public will be goings "Arse-whaat"
Someone get a fire engine, some Selenium, and David Duchovney.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
It replaces MOST phosphorus atoms with arsenic, but not all.
Nice troll, dickwad.
Leave it to unimaginative dumb fucks like you to NOT find anything amazing about this.
It doesn't seem like a very ASTRObiological discovery. It obviously has possible implications for astrobiology, but it seems more like a biological discovery.
This is sure to shut up all those naysayers who accuse NASA of being a waste of resources...
Apparently they have a invested in a pretty good network though. I was surprised that the video stream didn't cut out at all considering that there could be tens of thousands if not more watching.
I for one welcome our new arsenic overlords.
Now that's out of the way, do we understand the implications yet? Is this suggesting the bacteria might have piggybacked on an meteor? Could it have developed naturally on Earth? How might the arsenic-based DNA affect life forms based on it?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
It's life, Captain, but not life as we know it.
NASA has really started to irritate me, with their latest few announcements. Rather than just issuing the data and having a little show about its implications in NASA TV, they first make an announcement that they will make an announcement, then for a few weeks there is rampant speculation (even though it's entirely probable that the data is ready) and finally they make their announcement in a media-circus style event.
NASA should just make the damn announcements on their web site and on their TV channel, and let the science press (read: science tabloids) publish it as they will.
If their current trend continues, pretty soon NASA will be announcing their announcement of their announcement of a press conference to announce their data. It's a waste of time and energy for everybody. I don't know about you, but I simply want my news, I don't want news that there will be news of note in the near future.
It wasn't phosphorus free, in fact they hadn't confirmed how much of the phosphorus had been substituted with arsenic, but they did mentioned it was not 100%. They also mentioned it was more than just DNA (ATP was also mentioned, although they implied more).
floating in space....
According to this NYT article this is a normal earthly bacterium that, when placed in an environment full of arsenic, started swapping arsenic for phosphorus. It's not a totally new form of life unrelated to what we know.
See The F*** Conference!
Felisa said that there's just too little phosphorus to account for all the microbes, not that they were phosphorus-free, and acknowledged that there may be som phosphorus left in the DNA.
Kirk and Spock discovered the Horta over 40 years ago and this is about the same thing. While interesting, this experiment took place here on earth and the results had to be coerced. Not saying it couldn't happen in the wild somewhere out there, but the announcement was anticlimactic.
Gee a germ that uses poison for it's DNA!
This is how the Zombie Apocalypse will start.
Boy am I glad I put my 401k into Remingoton and Campbell's soup.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
How I am supposed to poison the darn thing now??!?!
how long until
NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth, using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything.
That is not the case. The DNA is largely the same, except that phosphorous has been exchanged with Arsenic. Don't get me wrong, this is still a hugely interesting discovery, but it was implied during the pre-conference speculation that this was an entirely separate instance of abiogenesis, and that is simply not the case, unfortunately.
I recall one of the arguments against panspermia, the origin of life from space and particularly molecular clouds, was a lack of phosphorus (a lithophile). Interesting that phosphorus deficit is part of this experiment.
Can someone post a link to something explaining the significance of the discovery for the layperson?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The discovery of this microorganism that can use arsenic to build its cellular components may indicate that life can form in the absence of large amounts of available phosphorus, thus increasing the probability of finding life elsewhere in the universe. The find gives weight to the long-standing idea that life on other planets may have a radically different chemical makeup and may help in hunt for alien life.
The more we think we know about, the greater the unknown... -Neil Peart
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Can anyone try a sample and let me know?
Wolfe-Simon's team took mud containing bacteria from the arsenic-rich Mono Lake and grew them in ever decreasing concentrations of phosphorous. Their rationale was that since arsenic is just below phosphorous in the periodic table, and shares many of its chemical properties and is even used as a source of energy for some bacteria, the bugs would be able to swap one for the other. That is just what happened.
From the New Scientist article. While it's possible, it hasn't been found in nature. The article also mentions why it might be unlikely. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19805-arseniceating-bacteria-point-to-new-life-forms.html
.Steven Benner, a chemist from the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Florida, who works on alternative forms of DNA, is sceptical that the bacteria really do contain arsenic. "I doubt these results," he says, since in order to measure the modified DNA it has to be put into a water-containing gel, which would rapidly dissolve any arsenate molecules. Any hypothesis that arsenate might replace phosphate in biomolecules must take this into account, he says.
We're doing terrestrial-based bio experiments now? Shouldn't this be left to Con-Agra in an effort to find tastier corn?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
welcome or (almost) phosphorus free overlords
. .
People are running around saying NASA discovered alien life.... and that's just wrong.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
and see if we can find analogous evolutionary behavior to substantiate carbon-based macro hypotheses
"While this new life form hasn't been found in another planet..." Looks like NASA is doing a bit more than looking towards the skies. I'm a little uncomfortable with all this.
This is interesting. I wonder what the implications for the drake equation are.
If life evolved twice independently on earth I would think that life in the universe is quite common. Time will tell if this is indeed the case.
On the other hand if life did not evolve twice independently. Wouldn't this mean that if life branched at a very early stage theories like panspermia are less likely?
Or, Yahoo did. Besides being listed as a sponsor on the NASA TV page, if one looks at the Windows Media link (for instance) and examines the ASX file, one notes a reference to "http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1369080&segment=149773". See for yourself (probably using wget).
Apparently they have a invested in a pretty good network though.
That's because it's outsourced.
Oh, and just some brief gloating: I was in the audience. ;)
I really enjoyed the back and forth between scientists there. It was neat to see a boisterous idealist scientist talking excitedly about the possibilities being tempered by the self-described "curmudgeon" scientist cautioning about reading too deeply into the results.
This wasn't "bred" or modified by the scientists from an existing bacterium, it was occurring naturally in Mono Lake and was transported to the lab for concentrated study. That was the second-to-last question answered in the NASA TV broadcast.
I for one welcome my new arsenic replaced phosphorus DNA’d bacteria overlord and hope for a long and prosperous reign!
All hail the new arsenic replaced phosphorus DNA’d bacteria!!
If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
It certainly opens the door to ideas Star Trek fans have had for 40+ years.
Crighton characters also discussed in at length in the novel Sphere.
forced to download plugins to watch? No thanks. If I can't watch it with VLC, flash, or common html I ain't botherin to watch. Comeon NASA, quicktime, realplayer, and windows media player are shit.
And I for one welcome our new GFAJ-1 overlords. Whatever. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
My thoughts are as follows:
THIS IS BLOODY AMAZING! followed by a little more tempered cogitation:
Arsenate is a triprotic species just like phosphate, each has a valence of +5, and it's directly one period down on the table so available electron shells in ground state will appear very similar. However arsenic possesses filled d orbitals and is about 7% less electronegative than phosphorous - these factors, among others, tend to make arsenate a little more reactive than phosphate which would make it less stable as a backbone of DNA. So if the degree of replacement is as thorough as NASA claims (they said they cultured it with zero phosphorous present - so only trace impurities) the cell has either found a way to strengthen the backbone or has developed an amazing repair mechanism which can deal with frequent DNA damage.
NASA has two summaries here and here.
Astrobiology has an article here.
And http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science will release a paper later today.
unfortunately it isn't intelligent :-(
'triprotic'??
What's that?
Watching porn on acid or something?
It substitutes phosphorus with arsenic, BUT it's not like it's entire DNA backbone (or m/t/rRNAs/proteins) is phosphorus free.
The bacterium GFAJ-1 is a strain of the Halomonadaceae family which is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteobacteria. It's just somehow adapted to the use Arsenic in place of phosphorous on it's DNA.
No ET. No shadow biosphere. But it pushes the envelope of where life can possibly exist and demonstrates that life could function, possibly evolve in an aresnic-rich phosphorous-poor environment. Importantly it shows there isn't some exact balance of elements necessary to support life, you can swap out elements and still have functioning life.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Yes, it is time to pull the plug on NASA they have finally gone too far. It's one thing to withhold information as if you are the 16th century version of the church, but at least they never faked it. I don't ever recall reading about the church saying they made an important discovery and will tell us in 24 hours... then announce that oranges are round. Cmon... what are you doing with all of that money. Why are Mars pictures taken with red tint and how long until we can get a color photo of the moon?
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
The odds of our eventual first encounter involving bipedal creatures with oxygen metabolisms are looking worse every year.
Frankly, i don't find it even remotely "amazing."
If an organization like nasa believes that life spontaneously formed by a random chance of proper elements coming together in a specific way here on earth, what in the world makes them think that random chance would be identical everywhere else in the universe? That assertion is just plain silly.
If there's other life out there, it may possibly be recognizable (maybe not), but is probably nothing at all like life on earth.
Random chance is just that....random. In regards to natural selection: nature would be vastly different in different places in the universe.
Random chance could bring some strange chemicals together on a planet with a 400 degree surface temperature, and "natural selection" could leave the life eventually looking a lot like mobile, or immobile, rocks feeding off chemicals floating around in the air.
Anyone want to share pointers on how to watch the video if you are using Linux? I guess I shouldn't be surprised but some part of me nonetheless is having trouble believing that NASA really puts this much effort into their "Other Viewing Options" feature while still providing only proprietary formats.
w00t! now that the whole life on other planets question has been answered, can we please start colonizing mars?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
What they did was take samples of bacteria from the mud, and placed them in three conditions. In one condition they kept raising the cells in normal, phosphorous containing substrate, removing a small portion to another phosphorous containing substrate, and repeating for generations. In another they put the cells on a substrate lacking phosphorous or arsenic, and removed a small portion to another empty substrate, and so on. Finally, they put some on a substrate containing phosphorous and arsenic, and kept pulling out small proportions an introducing them to plates higher and higher in arsenic. The serial dilutions eventually decreased the amount of phosphorous to amounts too small to account for the needs of bacteria. Cells grew on both phosphorous and arsenic plates, but they grew better in phosphorous. The arsenic cells had some weird vacuoules which might be helping to stabilize the arsenic based compounds.
They don't know if cells in the wild have this ability or if they evolved the ability over the course of serial dilutions. A simple mass spec can tell that the ones in the wild are not mostly arsenic based though.
Its hard to take anything they said seriously when they can't even get their Star Trek trivia correct. The one lady was alluding to how in Star Trek there was "silicon based life" when she said "remember 'the dark evil' and the Horta". I immediately said "Doh!" for her as it was 'The Devil in the Dark' and if she doesn't know that how can she possibly know anything about arsenic? She's a bricklayer, not a doctor.
NASA must employ the most ignorant smart people on the face of the earth. Every human on the face of the earth has arsenic in their body that influences the growth of bacteria, particularly in the digestive tract. These strains of bacteria are particulary resistant to traditional forms of treatment. People with heavy metals poisoning, like, half of the developing world ie. Bangladesh, have to deal with the consequences of heavy metal influenced bacteria every day. How bad could these strains of bacteria be? Causing chronic life-threatening diarrhea for one. As I said before, these NASA fools are MORONS. Budget cuts should be aimed squarely in their direction.
Last month, NASA hosted an online astrobiology conference:
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/ool-www/program/
The conference seminars are now available for viewing.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon's seminar is on day 2:
Alternative Biochemistry and Arsenic, or Life as We Might Not Expect It
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
Like tacos surprisingly.
Most all organisms strive to find at least one property that gives them an edge over their adversaries, and I suspect this would do it quite nicely, at least until one such member randomly morphs into a carnivorous version of the same bacterium. Once that happens then the whole population comes under the stress to mutate themselves to develop yet another advantage. It would be VERY informative of how life on earth developed to watch those mutations progress through the colony. A new post-Abiogenesis study anyone?
See, this is why I hate slashdot.
Instead of telling us 'Gizmodo was right', like we all read Gizmodo and keep constantly up to date about what's going on over there, how about TELLING US THE ACTUAL THING THAT HAPPENED.
No, I shouldn't have to follow a link to figure it...there's supposed to be an 'article summary', which, you know, gives some hint as to what happened.
Instead of just saying 'Oh, hey, these other people were right in their guess about a thing which i won't mention that they thought NASA would say.'. Well, woo-fucking-hoo. I'm sure we were all on the edge of our seat betting in the 'How correct is Gizmodo?' pool, and they just got a point! Wow! Who cares about actual news events, let's all sit there and count Gizmodo's points, or something.
Timothy, you goddamn fucking moron. It's one thing when the article summary is misleading or just flat out incorrect, but slashdot has now managed to hit a new low where the article summary doesn't even exist.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
This link may help. If not (it is, after all, a link to the chemistry department of a university), this, this, or this may.
And yes, since it has to do with DNA it is indeed porn on acid. Or maybe acid on porn.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm super jealous, honestly. I'd love to sit around watching them debate this stuff over beers with them using pretzel sticks, peanuts, popcorn, etc. to create models to argue their points in real time. As long as the bureaucrat wasn't around to speed things along.
Truth be told, female scientists get me hot.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Great summary, thank you sir. :)
I understand what you're saying here, but from everything we know (and we know a lot), the periodic table of elements is universal.
Some molecules (such as carbon or hydrogen) are simply so unique that they cannot be replaced by anything else. Nothing has the stability and bonding ability of carbon.
Similar things were thought about phosphate groups. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
The long and short of it is that no matter how hard you try, you'll never have an organism without hydrogen or carbon because there is simply no substitute. Same goes for a LOT of other things.
Sure, there will always be a lot of diversity and changes, but some things are simply universal.
We do have random, but it's random contained within limits set by chemistry and physics
the cell has either found a way to strengthen the backbone or has developed an amazing repair mechanism which can deal with frequent DNA damage
Hmmm. Maybe it methylates the DNA more? Or the histones are different. I guess - as you say - more repair enzymes is quite likely, since that just requires some promoter mutations.
The interesting question for me is whether any of the mechanisms are different for this organisms enzymes. For the last few months I've been sitting on the next desk to the maintainer of a database of biochemical mechanisms (MACiE - hi gemma, assuming you read slashdot, and happy birthday...) so maybe that's why it occurs to me. Many enzymes use ATP/NAD/other phosphate cofactors to make stuff, so if AsO4 has a slightly different chemistry, I wonder if different sidechains are used. Or, as I say, some completely different mechanisms (or pathways?).
Assuming humans were to make contact with intelligent multicellular organisms whose DNA was arsenic-based and not phosphorous-based, would human food be poisonous to them? Would their food be poisonous to us?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
But you have one requirement which you cannot avoid. The building material should be able to produce vast array of different structures. Complexity is the key. Apart from carbon there a few other elements that can form stable long chains with itself, but the conditions needed will disfavor all the rest that is needed. Like a solvent, for instance (water).
I sound like a carbon chauvinist, but so far it seems that chemistry agrees.
Arsenic (As) is a poison in the same way that carbon monoxide (CO) is a poison:
CO binds to the hemoglobin molecule in the same way that oxygen (O2) does (in fact, hemoglobin favors CO quite strongly in preference to O2). The blood then starts delivering CO to the cells instead of O2. The cells need O2 to live, and they can’t use CO, so they die.
As combines chemically in many of the same ways that phosphorus (P) does (As is directly underneath P in the periodic table), and P is one of the basic building blocks of life. So it’s no surprise that the As replaced the P in the body of this bacterium. The surprise is that the bacterium apparently can live with that. Most life forms can’t; they’d die before even a small percentage of their P atoms had been displaced by As.
If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that it’s only possible because it’s such a simple life form and As apparently works just well enough for it to use it instead of P without dying. But then, I’m not a NASA scientist nor am I itching for federal funding, so I’m probably not blowing this anywhere near out of proportion enough.
For the detailed explanation of why As is toxic, I relied on Wikipedia... but basically, it replaces P, and then bad stuff happens. But Wikipedia’s explanation is not for the faint of heart:
Arsenic disrupts ATP production through several mechanisms. At the level of the citric acid cycle, arsenic inhibits lipoic acid which is a cofactor for pyruvate dehydrogenase; and by competing with phosphate it uncouples oxidative phosphorylation, thus inhibiting energy-linked reduction of NAD+, mitochondrial respiration, and ATP synthesis. Hydrogen peroxide production is also increased, which might form reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. These metabolic interferences lead to death from multi-system organ failure, probably from necrotic cell death, not apoptosis.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Very interesting, but I get the impression that NASA is merely trying to demonstrate to the public why they're important and why they deserve our tax dollars. Not that they need convincing me, but they've got a lot of competition for tax money right now.
I just read that the House passed a $4.5 billion child nutrition bill apparently intended to promote better eating habits. $4.5 billion for the government to do something kids will ignore and parents should be responsible for anyway. And in the meantime NASA gets screwed.
nature would be vastly different in different places in the universe.
The laws of chemistry and physics work the exact same everywhere in the universe.
Although I do agree with your premise that life elsewhere can, and will probably look totally different than anything we could have imagined.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
To my point, what makes you think random-chance life elsewhere in the universe would need hydrogen or carbon, or a substitute for them, at all.
There are plenty of other molecules & elements that react with each other and release energy in the process without the involvement of carbon or hydrogen.
I also don't think you actually need to remove hydrogen and/or carbon from the equation at all. All I'm saying is that to assume that life elsewhere in the universe must be based on things that we see in life on earth is just ridiculous.
It could still be carbon based, but also completely unrecognizable by the standards of life on earth. Or it might not require carbon at all. Just because we can't imagine a certain combination leading to a certain result, doesn't mean it can't exist.
I know what you're talking about. The news about phosphate was really a kick in the fork.
I suspect that nitrogen and oxygen are safe on account of hydrogen bonding which doesn't translate down the periods, but taking the regicide of phosphorous as an example - carbon may not be as immune as we had previously thought. It's probably safe because of it's functionality at liquid water temperatures, but we're already seeing some pretty interesting silicon oils and materials.
Fluorine could play an interesting ET role due to it's ability to hydrogen bond - especially if we're talking about interactions with silicon, electronegativity is the key though - fluorine may never play nice with others at any temp.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2010/12/01/science.1197258.full.pdf
Let me be the first to welcome our poisonous overloards!
I think we need to follow up with an experiment where we grow Phosphorus based bacteria in an environment rich in Arsenic and poor in Phosphorus.
Given the chemical similarities, it might be that "our" terrestrial bacteria will make the substitution themselves in an adaptation to survive.
Even so, it would be a truly remarkable adaptation,
Yes. This is pretty significant. I wonder if there are any viruses that can effect them. Read about the Hershey–Chase experiment if you want to see how significant this is https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hershey%E2%80%93Chase_experiment
Similar things were thought about phosphate groups. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
Unfortunate? I don't think it's unfortunate at all. It's things like this that make us question our "universal truths" that makes science so interesting and worthwhile.
If we already knew everything there would be no need for science. We may "know a lot", but there's not a shortage of new things to learn.
I don't necessarily think you're wrong about the carbon and hydrogen thing - I've only really studied a little physics and chemistry, no biology. But I do think you need to be more open to being wrong - and to see it as an opportunity to grow rather than as a slap in the face.
which is totally what she said
here in a blog intended for "news that matters" for "nerds".
I mean, I know what a "blog" is, but I am dying to hear your definition.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Frankly, i don't find it even remotely "amazing."
what in the world makes them think that random chance would be identical everywhere else in the universe? That assertion is just plain silly.
Okay, wow.
So, because you think it's possible that life on other planets could use vastly different biochemistry, you're not amazed to actually find proof that alternative biochemistries do in fact exist.
I guess because you presumably believe that life on other planets could exist, you wouldn't find it even remotely "amazing" to find actual extraterrestrial life. "*yawn* I expected this to happen."
FYI, they aren't assuming life everywhere must be exactly like ours. They are reasoning, correctly, that there is only a limited range of biochemistries known to be possible, and it only makes sense to start from there.
You can't validly say "I'm not going to assume arsenic-based life is impossible, therefore I can presume it is possible and exists." If you weren't making assumptions, then this would be something very new, and it would be amazing to you.
Random chance is just that....random. In regards to natural selection: nature would be vastly different in different places in the universe.
Random chance could bring some strange chemicals together on a planet with a 400 degree surface temperature, and "natural selection" could leave the life eventually looking a lot like mobile, or immobile, rocks feeding off chemicals floating around in the air.
What occurs is random, what actually works, and thus survives, is not. "Random chance" cannot make any arbitrary combination of chemicals become life. Yes there are certainly going to be more combinations that do work beyond what we currently know. And yet that observation, while correct, is not enough to say that a specific combination does. So... you should be amazed that we actually found one. Unless you'd just already assumed it to be true without evidence.
The enemies of Democracy are
Belief versus non-belief is rendered MOOT by evidence. THAT'S why this is awesome for NASA - because they are scientists.
Amazing what NASA can achieve when they give up on space exploration.
THL phish sticks
I captured and converted it to mp4 format for anybody that wants to view it.
http://www.wuala.com/danathar/public
file is nasa.mp4 (it's the only one on that page)
Shock horror, there is life out there that doesn't match our common perception of the requirements of life. Perhaps now all those scientists will stop circle jerking over every "earth-like" planet they find and I dunno, perhaps realise life doesn't need to match our common forms of life, that perhaps there could be living things out there so completely different from anything we've ever seen before. Who says there's not life inside Jupiter (or any other gas giant for that matter)? Have we examined every inch of its insides?
Thanks for filling in the blanks. There's some things that I deal with so often that I forget I can sound a little weird when I get excited about science and open my mouth - phosphate is one of them.
But yeah - the short story is that phosphate (and arsenate) have three spots to kick hydrogen on or off with - and the number of hydrogens that hang out on a phosphate ion is very much related to the pH.
The long story (for anyone who cares) is that each of those hydrogens has a different equilibrium constant (pKa) at which it will pop off. H3PO4 is phosphoric acid but if you increase the amount of OH- in solution (or reduce the amount of H+) the first of those hydrogens will hook up with the OH- to make water which leaves H2PO4-. So the next hydrogen to take a hike will leave the phosphate at HPO4- - which means it's harder to leave and has a different pH (which is a fancy way of talking about the levels of H+ and OH- in water) it will hit equilibrium with. So on and so forth for each of the four phosphate species (0, -1, -2, -3 charge).
The really long version throws out concentration of the different species of phosphate and talks about activities, taking into account that the activity coefficient is affected by the square of the ion's charge... [We interrupt this chemistry lesson for the sake of sanity]
Strange - I forgot what I was talking about - but back to your question: yeah - DNA is both sex and acid
Since nobody is apparently willing or able to be helpful here I'll go myself. If you're trying to play this on Debian with Iceweasel and you, like me, are being sabotaged by the NASA website's extra-dumb client detection scripts this may work for you as well.
1) Download the asx file:
$ wget http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx
2) Find the playlist file link inside the text file then wget it:
$ wget http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1369080&segment=149773
3) Play the resulting file directly with vlc:
$ vlc makeplaylist.dll\?id\=1369080
This worked for me. I hope it helps someone else, but really NASA should fix their shit.
Sorry, if it has DNA, the term "all-new" does not apply. And if it's a member of a known group of bacteria, "all-new" does not apply. For full credit on the "all-new" test, it should have no DNA at all, or two bases or six bases instead of our four, or four bases per codon instead of our three, or it should use "r" amino acids instead of "l" amino acids. For partial credit, have a DNA helix that twists left instead of twisting right, or use a completely different table to translate codons into amino acids.
Still, it's an interesting development, and it's particularly noteworthy in the context of warnings, made by molecular biologists 10 years or so ago, that the ways we look for life won't detect life that is very different from what we're expecting.
Truth be told, female scientists get me hot.
Don't forget female engineers.
All you niggers that occused Bush of putting arsenic in the water best be shuttin' up and learning how to metabilize it.
Who says we can't preserve carbon and still have something that is VASTLY different from the current life on earth though. It could be carbon based, but use carbon in an entirely different way.
The laws of chemistry and physics work the exact same everywhere in the universe.
citation needed.
Seriously, how can we verify that this is true, until we have a chance to test the theory somewhere other than this little mudball we call a planet, or even this little group of sparkles we call a galaxy? We can stipulate that it is true, and proceed assuming the hypothesis is correct (we really have no other choice if we want to make any progress in astronomy and astrophysics), but it ain't necessarily so.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Napoleon apparently ate one.
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
Scientists should come up with theories and pursue those theories.
Scientists should not be closed minded people who won't try anything unless they already assume it will succeed.
To assume that for life to exist the same energy production processes using the same chemicals in roughly the same way must all be in place is contrary to everything the origin of life theories state.
Sometimes evidence is implied.
Best quote:
Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist at Columbia University who was not part of the research, said he was amazed. “It’s like if you or I morphed into fully functioning cyborgs after being thrown into a room of electronic scrap with nothing to eat,” he said.
Hmmm. I'm in a room full of electronic scrap with nothing to eat RIGHT NOW!
(Or when they have the X-ray structure of DNA with arsenic on it.)
..in the range of states that carbon goes through on earth, sure.
there's a LOT we don't know about the elements, one of which that's been NASA's goal to study is "do these elements behave the same if we change the variables?" --namely gravity. if the gravity exerted on an object changes, does the element behave "as expected"?
what about extreme gravity? as you approach a star, what we currently know about say: Carbon is that it behaves the same regardless of WHERE it is. There's some research currently underway that points to carbon being stable with 5-way C-C bonds under certain increased electromagnetic/gravimetric pressure.
if it's true, it would completely throw out the window all we know about the possibilities of carbon chaining and carbon based life. just as this discovery trashes what we know about DNA's ability to stay stable in an environment in which we had "Proven beyond a shadow of a doubt" that it had been impossible.
Everything you say is true, and yet quite off-topic. They stated clearly in the video that they won't be using this as a basis for ET searches.
What they did clearly state was that it was quite amazing that they now have direct evidence for a viable alternative to "the usual chemistry".
The jaded geek thing is cool'n'all, but it's a little pathetic that you can't see past that to realise how important this is.
you are completely right. It was a terrible choice of words for that sentence.
Like arsenic alone wasn't bad enough, now we have arsenic multiplying on our asses. Just great.
DISCLAIMER - I am not an organic chemist. (although I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night)
Having watched the computer simulation, what I see is an organism that substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in all its internal chemistry.
Arsenic is similar enough to phosphorus, from a chemical standpoint, that the substitution works to form similar molecules - so DNA is still DNA, ATP is still ATP, etc.
In other words, this is still good old Terran life chemistry and life processes with a raw materiel switched out. It isn't an organism whose genetic material wasn't made from DNA, or whose energy source was something other than ATP.
This, to me, looks like evolution in action. An organism living in an environment short on phosphorus but long on arsenic evolved to successfully swap the one for the other - but it did it with the same building blocks.
To use a Slashdot car analogy, this is a car whose engine block and connecting rods are made of aluminum instead or iron; the parts are still the same, but the material is different. To be truly "alien" (in construction if not origin) the car would have to be powered by a turbine, or by electricity (no no engine block or connecting rods at all)
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Nobody believes that atoms arrange themselves and bond together randomly into life-producing molecules. That is a Creationist misinformation meme. Atoms bind together in regular, predictable ways. Molecules are formed in regular, predictable ways. There is very little randomness about it.
Frankly, i don't find it even remotely "amazing."
If an organization like nasa believes that life spontaneously formed by a random chance of proper elements coming together in a specific way here on earth, what in the world makes them think that random chance would be identical everywhere else in the universe? That assertion is just plain silly.
This objection is just plain silly. It attempts to attack an assertion no one made.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Evolutionary professor says, from personal correspondence: "How about the RNA and the transcription process, and sequence similarities to other orgasnisms. Unless these issues are addressed they have no business publishing"
With all that arsenic I doubt they will smell very good.
Although some folks may like that garlicky smell. But on the other hand they probably will taste sweet!
citation needed.
Seriously, how can we verify that this is true...
We use a scryng lens, more commonly called a telescope. It allows us to examine in detail radiation from distant parts of the universe. Analyzing this radiation, we find that the processes that produced it conform to physical laws as we know them from our part of space.
That's how.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I think there is another point to be made as well. Not only did life based on DNA that required phosphate start here on earth, but apparently life based on arsenic did as well.
In effect, not only did lightning strike twice (question if there is other life in the universe) but it struck twice on the same planet.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
I'm afraid that, with finals in a half hour and all, I can't leave much of a substantial comment, but this announcement reminded me of another article I read a couple of years ago. I think I must have made a connection in my head between arsenic and cyanide... In any case: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/did-life-evolve-in-ice Enjoy. Critique. Do whatever--it's not my article.
To my point, what makes you think random-chance life elsewhere in the universe would need hydrogen or carbon, or a substitute for them, at all.
There are plenty of other molecules & elements that react with each other and release energy in the process without the involvement of carbon or hydrogen.
Life is not merely about releasing energy. It's about structure, about self-organising and self-replicating molecules. It is, basically, about really, really, amazingly complex molecules. And you can't have complex molecules without carbon. There is simply no substitute.
Hydrogen is similarly irreplaceable. It's also so abundant that simply based on its abundance you can be certain that any kind of life in this universe, no matter how alien, does something with hydrogen.
The other basic elements of life (nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur), who knows? Phosphorous is clearly the easiest to replace. Maybe there are ways to replace some of the other elements. Maybe it's possible to incorporate other elements into DNA-like structures. Time (and lots of research) will tell.
How long till Wikileaks posts the PDF.
NASA you suck. Publicly funded research, but the public can't read the full PDF without paying for it AGAIN.
I want my money back.
> Or it might not require carbon at all. Just because we can't imagine a certain combination leading to a certain result, doesn't mean it can't exist.
I've always believed that "life" exists elsewhere and we would never recognize it as such.
What I mean by that is that even on earth, our assumptions about life changed with the discovery of the cell. Then, with the discovery of the DNA. But we still grapple with how to classify viruses. Is it? is it not? why not? etc..
Those are based on the DNA. And the "basic" building blocks - the elements. The atom. At one point we thought an atom was the most basic building block of everything. Then some smartass had to figure out ways of splitting it (or, find the constituents - electron/proton). Is there more to it?
But then, we still haven't figured out what the hell is gravitation. It's just there. What other forces are "just there" that we don't know about? Is one of those forces "alive" - and therefore totally non-carbon based?
Isn't looking for "carbon-based life form" self selective? To me, it's like if I were to look for humans that have exactly my height, weight, skin-tone, eye color, distance between the eyes, length and width of nose etc.. and then being disappointed to find that I am alone in this universe!!
P.S. If you read read that after smoking a particular carbon-based life form rolled up in some paper, trust me, it'll make a whole lot of sense.
Interesting tidbit in Discover Magazine. Apparently the cells do well with plain phosphorous, but if the cells grow in an arsenic-dense medium, the cells enlarge and special vacuoles appear. It's fascinating stuff.
This is the first description of the announcement that isn't flawed. I have seen news article after news article refer it as "arsenic-based life" or "a bacteria that feeds on arsenic". Even during the presentation reports were calling with questions that indicated they had either missed the first 30 minutes or just didn't understand it. That wouldn't be so back except the scientists involved did everything they could to make everything understandable.
I would think that one would abbreviate the analog of ATP as ATAs- it can't very well be TriPhosphate anymore...
We use a scryng lens, more commonly called a telescope. It allows us to examine in detail radiation from distant parts of the universe. Analyzing this radiation, we find that the processes that produced it conform to physical laws as we know them from our part of space.
Indeed. That seems like saying that I can determine the precise type, winding configuration and driver of the generator providing power to my house by slapping a clamp-on ammeter onto my residential service.
If I have sensitive enough equipment, I can perhaps postulate some characteristics of the generator by the observed characteristics of the provided current and voltage, but other sources of interference between me and the power company could produce that same pattern, or obscure meaningful data that could help me figure out how that generator operates. Unless I can get close enough to either directly measure current/voltage at the source, or better yet, directly observe the generator itself, there are things I will not know about that energy source (other than it apparently doesn't like to work on Wednesdays...)
It's true that radiation provides a much broader, er, spectrum from which to glean information, however we are still studying the river, as it were, and trying to understand the mountaintop from which it flows.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
It is a postulate, sure. But it's still reasonably well supported. You don't have to travel millions of light-years to see that atoms behave in the same way - you can use spectroscopy.
What if this microbe isn't "new" - what if it is old?
As in - what if life on Terra initially evolved based around an arsenic atom, and then later evolved to use the much better and more stable phosphorus?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
You keep diluting any Phosphorus from the first sample over and over as you move to the arsenic substrates. Perhaps then the bacteria practice Homeopathy.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Gizmodo is massively wrong. NASA didn't "find new life," it engineered an existing form of life to replace the tiny amount of phosphorus in its DNA with arsenic. An impressive bioengineering feat, not discovery of a new life form.
You seek certainty. That only exists in theory. In practice, we know the laws of physics are universal, for all practical purposes, for the reasons I mentioned. If that isn't good enough for you, stick with divinity school. Science is not for you.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I'd say exactly the opposite is true. You speak of "knowing" when the truth is you "believe" based on assumptions about things you can't actually measure. It is the use of "know" that is a misapplied search for certainty.
The question is quite valid. It is entirely possible that we are in some region of space where the laws of physics are warped, just like we learned late in the game that gravity warps space and light actually doesn't travel in a straight line all the time. Or some other part of space is in such a warped field, which would also contradict the claim that "physics is universal."
I'd say that scientists who throw about terms like "know" and then get upset when lay people assume they meant "know" and not "hypothesize" are the ones in the wrong here. It takes effort to refrain from saying "we know" and instead say "we think" or "evidence suggests", but in the long run it prevents a LOT of miscommunication and misunderstandings.
Maybe its just an early experience in the criminal justice system (on the prosecution side) that makes me aware of this problem. Any prosecution witness who says "I know" when they mean "the evidence suggests" would have his head handed to him by the defense, and then the prosecutors when the case goes south. Science is no different.
No. You can measure the spectrum of the light that has reached us, but you cannot "use spectroscopy" on those atoms. A trivial example: light from distant galaxies passes through gaseous regions of space. If you assume that the light you see is the same as the light emitted directly, you'd be seriously wrong. Or, if you observe the light from a black body radiator that has passed through a gas that you didn't know was there, you'd be inclined to think the absorption bands you see were from the source. That would be wrong.
bacteria don't use histones.
the cell has either found a way to strengthen the backbone or has developed an amazing repair mechanism which can deal with frequent DNA damage
Hmmm. Maybe it methylates the DNA more? Or the histones are different. I guess - as you say - more repair enzymes is quite likely, since that just requires some promoter mutations.
The interesting question for me is whether any of the mechanisms are different for this organisms enzymes. For the last few months I've been sitting on the next desk to the maintainer of a database of biochemical mechanisms (MACiE - hi gemma, assuming you read slashdot, and happy birthday...) so maybe that's why it occurs to me. Many enzymes use ATP/NAD/other phosphate cofactors to make stuff, so if AsO4 has a slightly different chemistry, I wonder if different sidechains are used. Or, as I say, some completely different mechanisms (or pathways?).
Methylation happens to the bases, not the backbone.
Bacteria don't have histones.
Of course the enzymes are different; the enzymes in every individual in a population are slightly different, let alone the difference between the enzymes in different species. If this species has evolved a way to substitute arsenate for phosphate, then a whole lot of enzymes have probably changed to accommodate that change.
Life on earth is more diverse than your pedantic biology teacher taught you; this is an interesting example but hardly shocking news to real biologists.
Poison? No good. How do we know it'll effect their biochemistry? I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
They are called lesbians get it right
Or some other part of space is in such a warped field, which would also contradict the claim that "physics is universal."
Only if we can't find a way to (mathematically) describe the warp. Besides, you're just handwaving. Here's how science works: we assume "truth" of a model (although with your pedantic interpretations, I should say "applicability") until it has been proven, by repetitive experiment, wrong or incomplete. So unless you can actually demonstrate such a warped field in space, our physics model is universally valid for all intents and purposes, or in layman's terms, "truth".
We don't assume "false" until it has been proven true, because there is no way to universally prove anything beyond the field of mathematics.
I'd say that scientists who throw about terms like "know" and then get upset when lay people assume they meant "know" and not "hypothesize" are the ones in the wrong here.
Maybe. It could also be that scientists tire of lay people engaging in scientific discource without "knowing" the correct terminology. And the correct terminology, in scientific discourse, is the scientific interpretation, unless the lay explicitly identifies himself as lay.
It takes effort to refrain from saying "we know" and instead say "we think" or "evidence suggests", but in the long run it prevents a LOT of miscommunication and misunderstandings.
That goes both ways. It takes effort to understand "know" in scientific discourse is not the same as religious "knowing". Are you also ranting against the faithful using "know" when they should use "believe"? Do you rant at children when they use "know" as shorthand for "my mother told me"?
Maybe its just an early experience in the criminal justice system (on the prosecution side) that makes me aware of this problem. Any prosecution witness who says "I know" when they mean "the evidence suggests" would have his head handed to him by the defense, and then the prosecutors when the case goes south. Science is no different.
So, your argument boils down to "at work, in judicial discourse, knowing has a very specific meaning so I am against all usage of it in informal conversation"? If not, then in what circumstance is the phrase "I know" justified? Can "I once read somewhere..." be shortened to "I know"? Can I say "I know what I had for dinner last night" when I went to a restaurant?
Methylation happens to the bases, not the backbone.
Yeah I know, but perhaps that stabilises the DNA anyway?
Bacteria don't have histones.
Yes, but Archae do. They are SCOP family 47129. Admittedly I didn't check to see if these organisms are Archae
Of course the enzymes are different; the enzymes in every individual in a population are slightly different, let alone the difference between the enzymes in different species. If this species has evolved a way to substitute arsenate for phosphate, then a whole lot of enzymes have probably changed to accommodate that change.
See this is where your list of 'corrections' start to unravel. Are they different folds? Different SNIPS? Different quaternary structure? What I was talking about was different _mechanisms_. Perhaps they use the same mechanisms but a slightly different blend of sidechains. Or perhaps the mechanisms themselves are different.
Life on earth is more diverse than your pedantic biology teacher taught you; this is an interesting example but hardly shocking news to real biologists.
Your condescending tone is misdirected. I'm well aware of life's diversity, having spent a decade or more studying it. I can't now remember if my biology teacher was pedantic or not, but I've read enough since then about metallozymes, ribozymes, extremophiles, phylogenetic empires, etc to make up for it.
Wikipedia says the discovery was made in 2009, and announced yesterday, but that's not what I'm talking about.
How is this any different from the discovery made by the US Geological Survey back in 2008? http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/August/15080802.asp
Still, that reduction is just what I'm looking for in my active lifestyle (Ask your Doctor to be sure).
No, but we should be happy anyway.
It wasn't the terrible secret of space! Could you imagine all the pusher and shover robots coming to protect us, had that happened?
NASA has protected us from the terrible secret of space!
combination of other elements might proof to be better overall, but only in a specially arranged combination. Therefore something could replace carbon and hydrogen. Or maybe a new element is found which can replace them.
Science is not about ultimatums, "this simply is so and cannot be otherwise", but science is about keeping an open mind that something else might work, or things might work on unexpected ways.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
There simply is no substitute to the best we know-of right now.
There simply is no other kind of life forms we know-of right now. What about gaseous life forms? Simply because we don't know of such, does not mean such cannot exist.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Best things in the world are simple things. They might form complex mechanics, outcomes etc. but in essence they are still rather simple.
For example, such a simple thing as good food makes you feel good, but there is layer's upon layer's upon layer's of simple things making it that so.
Complexity is not the key, simplicity for complex outcome is.
Like some genius in the history said something like "Any idiot can make a bigger, more complex engine - it takes a true genius to make it simpler, smaller". With sufficient levels of abstraction, you can make anything, but the building blocks itself remain rather simple.
In a car analogy, internal combustion engine in principle is rather simple: Compress explosive/burning gaseous mixture, light it up, and as it expands it pushes the piston, redo the work by using some of the gained energy to compress next mixture.
All components itself in a modern engine are simple: Ignition plugs, valves, camshafts, valve guides, valve stems etc etc etc etc. but they end up forming a rather complex structure to achieve the work.
Take a wankel engine, and it's that much simpler (less components), yet the outcome tends to perform better in a simple displacement vs. output comparison. The components are rather simple, but no one would say the engine as a whole is simple.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
It's been years since I watched "Arsenic in the Old Lake"...
Okay, whoa, hold up here.
Let's get back to the base of this discussion:
ArcherB made the claim "The laws of chemistry and physics work the exact same everywhere in the universe".
I was merely trying to point out the fact that this is not an incontrovertible fact, merely what we accept as true based on the evidence we have been able to gather and interpret so far.
Put the shoe on the other foot here. Would you be so very adamant in defending the "knowledge" that there is no life in the entire universe other than that observed on our planet, simply because we have not (yet) found evidence to the contrary?
May I remind you that science is a process, one which relies on skepticism every bit as much as it relies on the experimental method. We all must make certain assumptions and proceed as if these were true in order to interact at all with the world around us, but when we allow those assumptions to calcify in our minds, they start to resemble the traditional "beliefs" of the religious mind, and when that happens we are in danger of rejecting or ignoring any evidence that contradicts these 'truths'.
The question of whether or not we can ever truly 'know' something absolutely is indeed a difficult one, as you pointed out, and one that philosophers and scientists have been struggling with for millennium (cogito ergo sum). Somehow I don't think we're going to solve it with a few pithy riposte's here ;)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
What exactly do you mean by "gaseous life forms"? You need some sort of structure. How do you structure gas?
I suppose if you have a really heavy, dense atmosphere where complex molecules can float about in sufficient concentrations, you might get some sort of gas-filled structures. But you still need the complex molecules. And there just aren't a lot of ways to get complex molecules. Carbon is really quite unique.
How would organophosphates affect these organisms?
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
It is entirely possible that we are in some region of space where the laws of physics are warped, just like we learned late in the game that gravity warps space and light actually doesn't travel in a straight line all the time.
Thank you, that is precisely what I was trying to point out, but expressed much better than I could manage!
It is possible (albeit not very likely) that our entire basis for physics is built on assumptions (aka "truths) that may not hold true elsewhere. Our frame of reference simply isn't wide enough for us to be asserting "it is so here, thus is it so everywhere".
We are struggling to broaden our understanding of far off places, but of necessity our interpretations of what we see are coloured by what we assume, and we must be open to the possibility that some of our assumptions may be wrong.
It's like trying to understand the rich culture and customs of India by observing the light patterns generated by major cities...we may observe the lights and fireworks of Diwali and know that they happen every year at the same time, but we don't know the reason for them (celebration, fear, joy, or even sorrow) without more direct information from the source.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
You speak of "knowing" when the truth is you "believe" based on assumptions about things you can't actually measure.
No, I speak of knowing (no scare quotes) because it is tiresome to have this freshman epistemological debate every time the subject gets into cosmology, or evolution, or anything reaching into or beyond geologic time, and sometimes even just historical times. It's infantile. It's like a bunch of Ayn Rand groupies trying to interject libertarianism into every discussion whether it's relevant or not.
If scientists can't use the word "know" to describe the results they obtain, then nobody can use the word, because nobody cares more about rigor applied to the analysis of evidence than scientists.
Edith Keeler Must Die
You seek certainty. That only exists in theory. In practice, we know the laws of physics are universal, for all practical purposes, for the reasons I mentioned. If that isn't good enough for you, stick with divinity school. Science is not for you.
Sounds like science is not your strong point, either, if you feel you must bolster your arguments by making snide personal comments in order to 'justify' your point. Good luck with that, I'm sure it'll come across well in your published works.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
There's a summary here
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Sounds like science is not your strong point, either, if you feel you must bolster your arguments by making snide personal comments in order to 'justify' your point.
I made a snide personal comment in order to push buttons, not to bolster any argument. My buttons get pushed when discussion about an exciting discovery gets sidetracked with all this freshman navel-gazing. It's not relevant, effective, or insightful. Scientific investigations will go and scientists will continue to expand knowledge despite the "insightful" comments of adolescents and creationists about what we can really "know."
So when my buttons get pushed, I push back.
Edith Keeler Must Die