For the First Time, Living Cells Have Formed Carbon-Silicon Bonds (sciencealert.com)

From a ScienceDaily alert: Scientists have managed to coax living cells into making carbon-silicon bonds, demonstrating for the first time that nature can incorporate silicon -- one of the most abundant elements on Earth -- into the building blocks of life. While chemists have achieved carbon-silicon bonds before -- they're found in everything from paints and semiconductors to computer and TV screens -- they've so far never been found in nature, and these new cells could help us understand more about the possibility of silicon-based life elsewhere in the Universe. After oxygen, silicon is the second most abundant element in Earth's crust, and yet it has nothing to do with biological life. Why silicon has never be incorporated into any kind of biochemistry on Earth has been a long-standing puzzle for scientists, because, in theory, it would have been just as easy for silicon-based lifeforms to have evolved on our planet as the carbon-based ones we know and love. Not only are carbon and silicon both extremely abundant in Earth's crust - they're also very similar in their chemical make-up.

Comments

Carbon vs Silicon

[jmv]

I'd guess that the main reason life is based on carbon rather than silicon is CO2 vs SiO2. It's a lot easier to breath in (plants) or out (animals) a gas (CO2) than a solid (SiO2). CO2 is also highly soluble in water, unlike (AFAIK) SiO2.

Re:Carbon vs Silicon

[MikeDataLink]

Except early cells didn't breathe at all...

http://www.windows2universe.or...

Re:Carbon vs Silicon

[MightyMartian]

Life on Earth evolved likely from the various earliest stages based on organic (carbon-based) chemistry. While silicon is similar to carbon in a lot of ways, it also tends to create much more stable molecules, which are less reactive overall, so it would strike me that carbon would be the more likely base for any kind of proto-organisms.

Who cares about silicon based life...

[jocarren]

The important application for this is CYBORGS!!

Silicoids are bastards

[Oswald McWeany]

If I learnt anything from Master of Orion as a kid, it's that Silicoids are bastards. They have no compassion, and you might as well conquer them and then use them to colonise inhospitable planets.

Re:Silicoids are bastards

[Xyrus]

You will not conquer us, ugly bags of mostly water.

-The Silicoids

Re:I for one...

[fisted]

The joke is on you, our overlords are already silicon-based.

Re:What about diatoms?

[RockDoctor]

Diatoms use silica - silicon dioxide - not silicon. That's a significant difference. The silicon atoms are never (TTBOMK, and I am a geologist, so a bit more familiar with the natural chemistry of silicon than most people) alone or simply solvated. The silicon is present and moves around as SiO4 tetrahedra with varying degrees and species of charge-balancing other anions and cations.

Sorry, but it's a pet nark. I bet there is someone down-thread who makes some comment about silicone tits, and I'm going to get all mediaeval on him (it'll be a him).

Just think...

[sacrilicious]

Not only are carbon and silicon both extremely abundant in Earth's crust - they're also very similar in their chemical make-up.

But for a cosmic flip of the coin, we could all be silicon-based beings, and our women could have carbon implants.

Except Silicon Chemistry isn't like carbon

[FeelGood314]

Si02 isn't soluble in water.
Silicon doesn't easily form chains. When we do coax it to form long chains it isn't stable.
If we look into space we actually find clouds of alcohol a very water soluble carbon based molecule. We generally don't see many Silicon base water soluble molecules occurring naturally.
The polarity of the bond in SiH4 is the opposite of CH4. The bond is also much weaker, weaker than even H-H bond thus very primitive organic processes would have a more difficult time building more complicated structures with Silicon.

Re:Except Silicon Chemistry isn't like carbon

[YutakaFrog]

Just to add a bit more in-depth analysis and information. I'm not a chemist, but I was trying to find once if the "Crystalline entity" was at all feasible in nature, and I found an absolutely fascinating article from Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican... Basically, the answer is no, silicon would have a very very hard time being the basis for life. For one thing, carbon (which is used for storing energy in carbohydrate chains) oxidizes to CO2 and water, and silicon oxidizes to a solid, which clogs up the system. For two, something about handedness that I didn't really understand. Maybe you'll make more sense of it than I could.

Re:What about diatoms?

[VernonNemitz]

Diatoms aren't the only life-forms that use silica; ordinary grass does it, too.

Impossible vs Reality

[meerling]

Just to point out a simple thing.

When I was a kid, they said there's no life without photosynthesis either to make a cells food, or to be another creatures food.
They said nothing could live in battery acid.
They said nothing could live in the the vacuum of space.
They said nothing could live in the high radiation of a nuclear reactor or space.
They said nothing could live in the sub zero conditions in ice itself.
They said nothing could live in the boiling waters of a geyser. (They hadn't found the oceanic hydrothermal vents yet.)
They said blood couldn't be based on copper, it had to be iron.

You know what? Since then every one of those things have been proven wrong. On Earth we have found life that violates those rules. Everything from Chemosynthesis to Extremophiles and Tardigrades, among some many weird and wonderful examples. Not all of these are newly discovered creatures or microscopic. Take the Horseshoe Crab and it's copper based blood as an example.

You'd be amazed at what actually exists in nature. Even if you think you've created something unique in the way of life forms, odds are mother nature beat you to it, and you just haven't realized it yet.