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Life plus Arsenic

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http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...ng-bacteria-may-expand-hunt-for-new-life.html
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/...senic-dna-phosphorus-wolfe-simon.html?ref=rss

Pretty neat.

Basically they found bacteria that could use arsenic in the place of phosphorous, which no other organism has ever been able to do before. While it's less efficient, it could allow life to develop in places where it normally couldn't.

Wolfe-Simon and her collaborators then ran chemical tests on the proteins, fats and DNA inside the cells and found arsenic in them all. The arsenic in the DNA was in the chemical form necessary to form bonds to carbon and oxygen, leading Wolfe-Simon to propose that the arsenic had taken the place of phosphorus in the DNA's chemical structure.

he added that while arsenic-based DNA is believed to be chemically unstable at room temperature, it might be stable enough to be the basis of life in very cold environments such as Saturn's moon Titan, where the average temperature is about –180 Celsius
 
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Yeah, read about that this morning. Very cool concept, it widens the spectrum of what we call "life" a whole lot more. It was actually something they found naturally, rather than something created.
 
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As stated in my thread, which you beat me to (gratz), it's a mammoth discovery. In order for DNA to be made to include arsenic instead of phosphorous it would have had to have evolved along an entirely different path (or through some process thought to be impossible). This will change everything about how science looks for new life considering that this new form of DNA can allow life to survive in arsenic soup.

[Edit]

Now, how do I delete my thread. Oops.
 
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What a coincidence. I'm doing a schoolwork about astronomy and a few days ago I decided to write about the possibility of life on Titan. This will make it a lot more interesting.

And thanks for the links btw.
 
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I saw that one too but I want to see them finding microorganisms on another planet and prove once and for all we're not the only living things cause this one is found on Earth. Now it's rather disappointing that so convincing real stories like 'the 4th kind' movie turn out to be so fake.
 
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184257-albums4036-picture38760.jpg
 
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So...if the arsenic based helix is unstable at high temperatures I have 2 questions:

[1] Does that mean it's more stable at lower temperatures? I ask because I'm not good with chemistry. What I mean to say is: will a molecule that is unstable at high temperatures tend to be more stable at lower temperatures than the phosphorous helix which is stable at high temperature?

[2] Why is it in California? Jk.
 
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[1] Does that mean it's more stable at lower temperatures? I ask because I'm not good with chemistry. What I mean to say is: will a molecule that is unstable at high temperatures tend to be more stable at lower temperatures than the phosphorous helix which is stable at high temperature?
I don't know the exact chemistry, but its true that it can be more stable at low temperatures, such as those on Titan.

It could mean that alien life could develop in places like that. Ofc, you have to take into account that its longer and less efficient for life, so that might cause complications preventing life from arising.
 
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