Aliens have landed
NASA has just announced that they have found some alien life forms. But before you get too excited about little green men, this is actually about little green bacteria. Well maybe not green as they are to small to have any colour.
The reason NASA says they’re alien is because they love Arsenic which to all other lifeforms on Earth is a extremely toxic. So either these bugs have come from space and are colonising our planet or they have evolved to cope with arsenic in their environment. Of these two theories I know which one is more believable.
The reasoning behind the theory about why the bacteria can handle arsenic is because it has similar chemical reactions as Phosphorus. It tends to interfere in chemical reactions involving phosphorus which is where the toxicity comes from. However just like 99% of snakes can cope with their own poison, these bacteria have evolved to cope with arsenic which sometimes occurs in high concentrations in their environment.
So life is not just carbon based with nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sulfer thrown into the mix.It could be any mix of chemicals. So there could be life on Titan or Enceladus or even Mars. It’s just that we might not recognise it at first because we have fixated ideas about what life is.
So what is life? If a bacteria here on Earth has evolved to cope with chemicals that aren’t used by the rest of the lifeforms on the planet, then what could happen elsewhere. Elsewhere being on other planets or even other planetary systems or even in other galaxies.
Because we have found something that uses arsenic in it’s metabolism whats to say that there aren’t other forms of life that use some exotic chemistry in their metabolism which to us is posionous. Or even not recognised as life. The findings show that it’s likely that just about anywhere there will be some form of life, though most will probably bacteria-like.
Now for some real alien life forms.
This was a bit of a change from the normal Anna Raccoon articles. A bit more sciency. Let me know what you think about such articles.
SBML
December 11, 2010 at 11:35
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“life” cannot occur as readily as many people have been led to believe.
(Stewart Cowan)
Stewart, it’s only creationists who believe that life can occur easily. The
gods can just say, “let there be…”
Others believe that it takes very, very
long time, and unusual conditions. That’s why we only have evidence for one
occurence, (so far).
- December 8, 2010 at 16:54
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People need a paradigm shift here. There are dangerous misunderstandings
which surround evolution – “life” cannot occur as readily as many people have
been led to believe.
There is a Law of Biogenesis which states that, “life arises from
pre-existing life, not from nonliving material”.
To believe contrary to Louis Pasteur’s Law is not a new idea, “The ancient
Greeks believed that living things could spontaneously come into being from
nonliving matter, and that the goddess Gaia could make life arise
spontaneously from stones…”
This is interesting considering how Gaia worship has returned in the form
of devout environmentalism.
But I suspect that NASA will keep putting out “alien” stories, especially
in times where money is tight, to keep the government funding coming
through.
And it is vital to keep up the pretence if a government ever stages an “alien” invasion as a pretext to
remove the last of our freedoms.
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December 6, 2010 at 18:58
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Great article.
I subscribe to the belief that it all happens something like this:
There are an infinite number of universes forming a multi-verse (rather
like bubbles in soap suds.) Of those trillions of universes only one in a
billion has the six prerequisites in place for the existence of the physical
laws to form stars and planets. Despite the long odds this still means there
are billions candidate universes available. And each of those candidate
universes possess trillions upon trillions of galaxies – in turn these contain
inumerable numbers of stars … and even with odds of one in a trillion there
are trillions of Goldilocks planets like our own where the conditions for life
are just right.
The odds are on. Natural selection refines everything after that.
IMHO the universe is teeming with life – it’s sentient life which counts.
And I believe that the universe is teeming with that too – especially
considering the infinite amount of time involved. And especially now that it
seems that carbon based life is not the only way to go.
- December 6, 2010 at 19:15
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Interesting perspective, and perhaps your right although I do not quite
understand the multiverse theory. You seem well versed, could you recommend
a suitable book?
However one small point. This discover is simply that terrestrial carbon
based life can (with selection) substitute phosphorous with arsenic. It is
not suggesting that the it is a arsenic based life form, indeed. Arsenic
lacks the ability to readily bond with the other common elements in living
organisms.
- December 6, 2010 at 16:39
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The interest is because arsenic has very similar chemical properties to
phosphorus, but is much more unstable when it comes to bonding. If and it is
not yet proven, that As replaces P in the DNA of this bacterium then it is
WOWEEEEE time. Especially for researchers who look at why and how such
arsenical DNA is stabilised. This would have immense implications for
astrobiology and potential alien biochemistries. Esciting times once again in
molecular biology. This will not sell papers, but alien life even if it isn’t
at all ET will!
- December 5, 2010 at 23:37
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Hey, careful Pericles! I think they’ve got you sussed, too! Divers degrees?
Wrong century! They spell it diverse, now.
Actually, “Sussed” may methinks
be dated too, innit?
(Beams up.)
- December 5, 2010 at 19:59
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I had a feeling that would happen.
Yes, I’d kinda like more science, but
I’d be forever nit-picking at it, too.
Actually, New Scientist is just as bad, these days. The writers are
reasonably knowledgeable, but the editorial team love to “sex-up” the cover
stories, to attract passing trade in the newsagents. And the arty-farty
illustrations, to accommodate limited attention spans! Aagh!
Oops, I think I’ve just exposed myself as another alien.
- December 5, 2010 at 20:40
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Nothing lost, zaphod ; we always knew you were.
ΠΞ
[Exit pursued by a raccoon]
- December 5, 2010 at 12:09
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FOR INFORMATION, NOT FOR PUBLICATION
The difficulty about writing on scientific topics for the general public is
to tread the fine line around the misleading.
This post, in my view, is seriously misleading in its use of the term
“alien”. There is nothing alien (by which general readers are likely to
understand “extraterrestrial”) about these arsenic-using bacteria. Unusual,
yes, alien, no. They are just another product of evolution.
“Alien” in this context belongs to the world of tabloid journalism, not to
that of rational, educated discourse. You lose credibility by such
mistakes.
BLC
- December 5, 2010 at 12:33
- December 5, 2010 at 01:30
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Once life has got started, it adapts to every conceivable niche. But it
looks like all life we have found is related, so it probably only started once
on this planet. So that initiation could be quite rare.
The chances of life being unique to Earth, though, are so remote that it’s
not worth considering. There will be life elsewhere, but not necessarily near
here.
Of all the species on this planet, huge numbers of them, only one has
developed “intelligence”. So that is probably rare elsewhere, (and also it’s
not that important to survival.)
Intelligent life is very unlikely to be unique to Earth. But it may be so
thinly spread through the universe that we’ll never encounter it.
- December 4, 2010 at 21:38
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I come here for equal measures of learning something new, satirical
comment, humour and common sense. I’m pretty sure science is not going to
upset that mix.
Mud, mud, Gloria Smudd, nothing quite like it for incubating
arsenic-tolerant life forms. Her abilities are much underrated, and sorely
missed recently.
- December 4, 2010 at 19:55
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Me? I’m allergic to everything. It’s a wonder I’m still alive, let alone
conscious.
Helloooo, Anybody out there?
- December 4, 2010 at 18:49
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Even the humble rat has developed immunity to common poisons, within a few
generations…
- December 4, 2010 at 17:52
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If I remember rightly, even the lowly and barbaric human being can have a
resistance to arsenic.
The murderer in Dorothy L. Sayers’ “Strong Poison” has shared a meal with
his victim. Everything one ate, so did the other, in equal quantities. Neither
ate anything else. There was no antidote. All this was doubly proved. Yet the
victim died horribly of arsenic poisoning, and the killer did not.
The reason was that the killer was an “arsenic eater” — an addict — who had
evolved a resistance, and who could whop it back till the cows came home. Good
stuff, in its day.
Oh — you were going to read it next week? Sorry….
- December 4, 2010 at 17:31
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It’s not the only example of alien life on earth. There are life forms
living around the black smokers, the hot water vents in the deep ocean. These
life forms do not depend in any way on sunlight.
“All these communities are very different from most of the
terrestrial
communities; they do not rely on photosynthesis, but on
chemosynthesis made by bacteria, using energy delivered by the center of the
Earth.”
- December 4, 2010 at 17:17
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I must have mis-read the acticle, as I thought the organism incorporated
arsenic in its molecular make-up, not just exhibited a tolerance to it.
Then there are the life-forms at the bottom of the oceans, near thermal
vents, which are tolerant to (what would be normally) toxic levels of sulphur,
etc. These have evolved completely separately from other marine life – there’s
no light or oxygen down there.
What indeed is life? And would it matter if we did not have
consciousness?
- December 4, 2010 at 20:40
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No, you didn’t misread it. All life forms hitherto analyzed on
Earth have incorporated C, H, N, O, S and P to divers degrees.
The newly discovered bacterium seems to have incorporated As vice
P ; i.e. the As performs the function within the organism that we
expect of P.
As to S.B.M.L.’s question — should there be more science in the
coondominium ? — well, I’m for scientific discussion where ever it
occurs. If our politicians had science (in its original sense), either
we should not be about to go bankrupt ‘combating global warming’ or we’d be
able to prove mens rea when indicting them for their promotion of
the fraud.
ΠΞ
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December 5, 2010 at 15:30
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Ed P, from the article I read I believe that it these bacteria do in fact
substitute arsenic for phosphorus in their molecular makeup.
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December 6, 2010 at 18:35
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These researchers kept bacteria in an arsenic-rich environment and
selected out a strain that could tolerate arsenic. They went on to show
that the bacteria evolved the ability to substitute arsenic for phosphorus
(the two elements are an octave apart in the periodic table, and share
many properties, which is precisely why arsenic plays such a starring role
in our murder stories: the body can’t easily distinguish arsenic from
vitally needed phosphorus and then discovers its mistake too late).
The researchers started with bacteria taken from lake Mono in
California, which is heavily loaded with arsenic, and therefore there was
reason to expect that bacteria in the lake might be more tolerant of
arsenic than most organisms are. So it proved, and the researchers
enhanced the effect by breeding bacteria in a phosphorus-deprived,
arsenic-rich artificial environment. The artificially selected strain of
bacteria were able to survive by replacing phosphorus with arsenic in many
crucial molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. This is a really
interesting discovery, and it is a pity that the hype suggested something
more, leading to an unfortunate sense of anti-climax when one reads the
actual scientific paper.
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