subject: Alien Life discovered in California [print this page] Alien Life discovered in California Alien Life discovered in California
Earlier this week I read a small tidbit about NASA's preparation for an announcement regarding astrobiological discovery. I didn't think much of it. I mean, what are the odds that we found E.T. or Howard the Duck, right?
All life, as we know it, requires oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon of the U.S. Geological Survey says that a study (and her team) has discovered a microbe that can substitute arsenic for phosphorus. ALL DNA have these building blocks, and they are absolutely required to exist on our planet. Until now. "The definition of life has just expanded", said NASA's Ed Weller. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."
The microbe was found in sunny California and more specifically, in the poisonous Mono Lake in Yosemite National Park. "We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Wolfe-Simon. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"
What this really means is that the other planets in our solar system can theoretically have life at this very moment. Wolfe-Simon added that the microbe "doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living". Sure, it's absurd to think that there are 7 foot aliens shooting dice on Jupiter right now, but today, officially, it's MORE THAN possible that life exists outside of planet earth.
Sure, it's not as amazing an announcement as a green alien, but it's definitely something that altered the landscape of life and science. That's no joke.
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