New bacteria redefines life as we know it

[Reincarnate]

The thing is that life can come in a variety of forms. There are many ways to build a system. Some may be harder to generate than others based on the environment.

[bender5]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

This isn't *surprising* news, because in theory this should be expected.

But it's great to see reality pulling through.

that's kinda where I was on the whole issue.

I read the article, and just smiled.

Obviously things can sustain under conditions that we can't, look at cave dwelling creatures that never see light, ever.

[Mulie]

It's world-shattering news to a few and very surprising to other professionals, but not to the layperson.

Anyway, it's very significant; not that anyone's going to debate that. At least, I hope not.

[Cenright]

I would say that it is significant in the scientific realm, but just because we never saw it before, does not mean that everything is turned on its ear. Yes, a big theory now has an exception, but for all we know, this can not be taken much further. Just because something is different, does not mean you can all of a sudden apply it to every other case and get a new awesome result.

People always want to sensationalize their news, and make it bigger than it is. Why? More research money. They are going to tell you all the things it COULD be used for, before they even test those things. Let's see what they can do with it first.

Interesting? Yes. Groundbreaking? Sure. Can be used to change all life as we know it? Probably not.

[Mulie]

Before we get a bunch of misdirected rebuttals I just want to say no one has really made that claim. ("Can be used to change all life as we know it.")

[Andrew Mitchell]

i was expecting religion to be brought into this lol, well done folks even though i must admit i do get a giggle out of existential angst

[who_cares973]

Like rubix said it isn't anything I wasn't expecting but great to actually know its been found. Anyway great news is great put a smile on my face.

[Izzy]

I can only hope this leads to great discovery. We could use some progress in understanding the universe about now.

[pokelda]

Originally Posted by banditcom

The replies in this thread make me happy I visit this forum once a week or less.

based on the grand total of 1 reply.

edit went back and read the rest of the thread ur right banditcom

[ibooalot]

Originally Posted by Nyokou

the idiocy of people on FFR... Can't appreciate a good find.

wait what? the majority of the people in this thread are reacting very positively to the news ?_?

science aside, i think people are reacting to this with so much more interests and enthusiasm than other scientific discoveries because we are culturally fascinated by life. what with all the news stories of life sustainable planets thousands of light years away from us to the coverage of evidence of water existing on mars, its apparent that people want to know if we aren't alone in the universe.

the idea of replacing what is considered to be an essential element for life with a substitute does not just exist in the field of academic science, it has also been explored in our culture. Silicon based organisms, replacing carbon as the base element to create various biological chemicals, are featured in many sci fi novels and tv series. famous scientists are known to have given credence to this idea, commenting how life forms may have formed in drastically different ways than we may have thought. this is one of allures of scifi, that we can immerse ourselves in a fantasy universe while making it plausible enough to make the setting believable. the way i see it, I think this news is amazing because to see something from our fantasies come to life, now thats something truly out of this world.

[Reach]

It's interesting. It's not entirely earth-shattering though. These conditions were artificially induced and decreased cell functionality. Arsenic is known to take the place of phosphorous in chemical reactions, and consequently this is why it's poisonous.

Really, this study just goes to show you how flexible life can be across a broad range of conditions, especially extremophiles! But in reality, we already knew that.

[Andrew Mitchell]

reach for the dettox

[MixMasterLar]

I'm with Izzy on this: Hopefully there's something we can get out of this...

[Reach]

So I spent the last little bit reading through parts of the actual paper.

If you read the paper and not the news articles, there are some problems. I did part of my undergrad in biochemistry and molecular biology, so I can comment on this a little bit.

The results suggests that arsenate replaced phosphate in certain conditions. There's however, no evidence this replacement took place in biochemically active DNA/RNA involved in transcription/translation. As such, the incorporation could be biochemically redundant. They need more evidence.

Arsenate resembles phosphate structurally, which is why it can take its place chemically. However, it's known to be completely unstable in water. It quickly hydrolyzes (decomposition via reaction with H2O). Instability suggests less than ideal conditions for ever composing biochemically active DNA strands.

Interestingly, in the experiment water is completely removed. If the conditions were similar to any natural conditions on earth that contained water, there would have been no results. This is specious at best.

As such, I would argue there is a lot of additional research that needs to be done on this subject before we can draw any serious conclusions (which also appears to be the view of the authors of the paper). These organisms could just be storing the arsenic to avoid toxicity, which would also explain the increases in size. Another implication here is that for this to be chemically practical you would need to generate conditions on another planet without water that is high in arsenic but low in phosphate. This is rather unlikely; phosphorous is much more abundant than arsenic. I suppose anything is possible though.

[ninjaKIWI]

Originally Posted by Mulie

Before we get a bunch of misdirected rebuttals I just want to say no one has really made that claim. ("Can be used to change all life as we know it.")

Originally Posted by Thread Title

New bacteria redefines life as we know it

?_?

[Punk Kitten]

Originally Posted by Nyokou

Ah, the idiocy of people on FFR... never gets old.

Can't appreciate a good find, always gotta complain about some other **** that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. I'm with OneHandNow. It would be badass to have arsenic in my DNA.

Marry me.

[who_cares973]

lmao you want to marry nyokou

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Reach

The results suggests that arsenate replaced phosphate in certain conditions. There's however, no evidence this replacement took place in biochemically active DNA/RNA involved in transcription/translation. As such, the incorporation could be biochemically redundant. They need more evidence.

I didn't read the paper yet out of apathy, but this is interesting to know -- this was exactly what I had been wondering about.

[XCV]

I'd wondered where this came from.

[Quigly]

Originally Posted by Bill Kaulitz

They need to find the cure to cancer. That should be number one priority. =/

Besides...Nasa...

Should be also looking for other planets to live on. What's with this ****?

So then every scientific discovery that isn't the cure for cancer is thus rendered useless. Okay.

As for the NASA comment, how the **** are you 24 ahahaha.