we got aliens here

[cheezMcNASTY]

copypasta from the fable forums.
srs bsns guys.

Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.
At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.
But not this one. This one is completely different. We knew that there were bacteria that processed arsenic, but this bacteria—discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California—is actually made of arsenic. The phosphorus is absent from its DNA. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.
No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology. I don't know about you but I've not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. And that's without counting yesterday's announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor a trillion Earths, dramatically increasing our chances of finding extraterrestrial life.
The new life forms up close, at five micrometers.

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

 

[Richtofen]

Yeah, funny now that you mention it cheez...I read the same damn article posted on my rogers homepage. :lol: I'm not much of a biologiest or science geek but that's pretty interesting.

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

Arsenic, the human genetic poison, instead of phosphorous... That's quite interesting.

 

[LordOfDarkness]

OK, here is the part that stands out for me in your article: "Arsenic is an element poisonous to every other living creature in the planet"...does this not scare anyone? Aren't bacteria known for their ability to reproduce extremely fast? Let's say this bacteria gets out of control, infesting all our food and water supply...ummm would you like a little poison with that?

Interesting information. But that makes for a scary point.

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

Just imagine if this thing was arsenic based instead of carbon.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

did further research and it looks like it isn't an extraterrestrial. it occurred naturally on earth in an extreme highly alkaline (basic Ph) swampy environment. but with the discovery of the existence of TONS more potentially inhabitable planets, this knowledge will be put to good use in expanding the ways to search for life on them.

 

[V]

Haha, outta control? Kinda like us. =p

 

[wallE156]

Zim did it