Posted by:
Skunk Puppet
(
)
Date: December 02, 2010 04:53PM
Jesus Smith Wrote:
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>
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html>
> But the announcement is underwhelming relative to
> the hype. It's terrestrial life, they say.
>
> They're suggesting that it happened to be a
> substitution rather than a completely independent
> evolution. That being the case, it would share
> sequence (though with bases of arsenic/arsenate).
> The rumors had said it had a DNA that "is
> completely alien to what we know today."
> Completely different means it branched off and
> evolved independently very early on. Is it
> substitution from early evolution?
>
> If it evolved that far back, my question is, when
> did it start evolving? How long has Mono lake
> existed and with an abundance of arsenic? Was
> that region part of the great basin?
>
> I have to stop listening for a work meeting but
> will return to this later.
Yeah, the hypers never said it was extra-terrestrial and the actual announcement did not really live up to the hoopla surrounding this "discovery." Apparently, it was a bacterium living in the mud of the lake and the boffins observed it uptaking arsenic instead of phosphorus (very close on the periodic table) and growing and thriving despite the absence (total absence?) of phosphorus, a component needed for life as we thought we knew it, and the incorporation of arsenic. They didn't say anything about old lace. Heh.