NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

[Neeper]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm really curious to see what the creationists and intelligent designists do with this info.

Who cares? They are irrelevant. They are going to say the same stuff as always.

I think this is exciting news. I think life always finds a way even on another planet that might be completely different than earth. I believe life is a part of the evolution of the universe and is abundant everywhere.

I think for sure, no doubt in mind, we will find extraterrestrial life soon.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by mpaca

Even if aliens do get discovered... they will just say..."well that means God created humans and aliens"

Isn't that what they have been doing for centuries with new ideas and discoveries?

I've had a pastor once tell me that the bible already speaks of alien lifeforms. I guess there's a line somewhere in the bible which has God saying 'you are not the only sheep in this flock'

[Sluggo]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm really curious to see what the creationists and intelligent designists do with this info.

Throw a bucket of extra strength head and shoulders in the lake and let Selenium do its work.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm really curious to see what the creationists and intelligent designists do with this info.

Can we please not turn this into one of those fanatical religious/anti-religious debates... There's already a thread for that.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Can we please not turn this into one of those fanatical religious/anti-religious debates... There's already a thread for that.

Yes, please.

And please no arrogant d-baggery while claiming those on the other side of the argument are arrogant d-bags.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

I've had a pastor once tell me that the bible already speaks of alien lifeforms. I guess there's a line somewhere in the bible which has God saying 'you are not the only sheep in this flock'

Ezekiel 1:4-14
4And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. 5Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. 6And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. 7And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. 8And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings. 9Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. 10As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle. 11Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies. 12And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went. 13As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. 14And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by T@T

NASA fails. No new info at all. It was shown August 30th on Morgan Freemans "threw the wormhole" EP-5.

Felicia Wolf Simon was the scentist who discovered it.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/throu...d-we-get-here/

Fast forward to 33:30

i knew this news seemed really familiar, i just couldn't remember where i saw it

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

i knew this news seemed really familiar, i just couldn't remember where i saw it

Yeah, Ive been waiting since august for there to be more talk about it, I was intrigued to think that life on earth could come from more than one genesis. Not sure why it took 4 months.

[troutman]

Get Your Biology Textbook...and an Eraser!

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/article...ng-on-arsenic/

Wolfe-Simon’s discovery represents the first time in the history of biology that an organism has been found to use a different element to build one of its most basic structures. The paper appears in today’s issue of “Science Express“ and will subsequently be published in the journal Science.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/ea...97258.abstract

Abstract

Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Although these six elements make up nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids and thus the bulk of living matter, it is theoretically possible that some other elements in the periodic table could serve the same functions. Here, we describe a bacterium, strain GFAJ-1 of the Halomonadaceae, isolated from Mono Lake, California, which substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth. Our data show evidence for arsenate in macromolecules that normally contain phosphate, most notably nucleic acids and proteins. Exchange of one of the major bioelements may have profound evolutionary and geochemical significance.


Nobel Prize?

[troutman]

http://www.planetary.org/about/press...eep_Space.html

NASA's announcement today of the discovery of bacteria from Mono Lake, California, that can use arsenic in its body instead of being poisoned by it, is significant to the search for life on other worlds. Not only do these organisms live in an extreme environment -- but they are also an extreme life form.

If we can find such an extreme combination on Earth, what may have evolved in alien environments elsewhere?
Bill Nye, the Planetary Society's Executive Director, said:

"If you or I ingest arsenic, well... it doesn't go so well. So, if we can discover arsenic-loving bacteria right under our noses in such a well-researched place as Mono Lake, who knows what else is out there, on our world or somewhere far, far away?"

Note that arsenic is immediately below phosphorus on the Periodic Table of the Elements. Perhaps you remember the silicon-based creature called horta in the original Star Trek series. The idea was that silicon is right below carbon in the periodic table; they are in the same chemical period. While swapping silicon for carbon is probably not a possibility, this is the same concept -- except that it's science, not science fiction. Arsenic is highly toxic to living things like us, but, chemically, it behaves in a similar way to phosphate

Reader Comment:

On the NASA web-tv Wolfe-Simon seems very thorough with claiming that she don't know if it is _complete_ substitution, if I understood correctly.

[troutman]

From last summer:

http://skepticblog.org/2010/06/09/no...tan/#more-8550

by Phil Plait, Jun 09 2010

There has been a bit of an uproar the past day or so that scientists have found evidence of life on Saturn’s giant moon Titan. As soon as I saw the press release I knew this was going to be a problem. So let’s be clear:

First, have we found life on Titan? No.

Have we found evidence that there might be life on Titan? Sorta. The results are preliminary and not yet confirmed; in fact, some of the evidence is from computer modeling and has not been directly observed.

http://www.ciclops.org/news/making_s...p?id=6431&js=1

Recent results from the Cassini mission suggest that hydrogen and acetylene are depleted at the surface of Titan. Both results are still preliminary and the hydrogen loss in particular is the result of a computer calculation, and not a direct measurement. However the findings are interesting for astrobiology. Heather Smith and I, in a paper published 5 years ago (McKay and Smith, 2005) suggested that methane-based (rather than water-based) life – ie, organisms called methanogens -- on Titan could consume hydrogen, acetylene, and ethane. The key conclusion of that paper (last line of the abstract) was "The results of the recent Huygens probe could indicate the presence of such life by anomalous depletions of acetylene and ethane as well as hydrogen at the surface."

Now there seems to be evidence for all three of these on Titan. Clark et al. (2010, in press in JGR) are reporting depletions of acetylene at the surface. And it has been long appreciated that there is not as much ethane as expected on the surface of Titan. And now Strobel (2010, in press in Icarus) predicts a strong flux of hydrogen into the surface.

This is a still a long way from "evidence of life". However, it is extremely interesting.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Where's my jet pack and robot servant.

Ahead, we're about a millenium behind. Thanks a lot religion.

fyp

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

So this really does completely change how we look at how we were created. This is very exciting indeed.

I don't know about the evolutionary consequences.

However, from a catalysis / biological structure-function perspective I find this extremely interesting. Multiple enzymes in our body act based on recognition of phosphorous-based structures. This discovery suggests that these bacteria could have analogous mechanisms which function through discretely different routes.

What would be even more interesting is whether the substitution of arsenic actually allows these organisms to use mechanisms that are not analogous to what the rest of us phosphorous-loving organisms use.

In English, I think this is similar to finding an engine in some barn that generates horsepower like the engines we know*, but uses a completely different fuel. When you dissect that engine, you'll either find that:

1) the tools you're using today can be easily modified in ways you didn't think possible so that you can use another brand new type of fuel.

2) the inside of the engine shows you ingenious variations on the combustion mechanism we all know and love.

Both possibilities are exciting, imo.


* i'm not making a john galt reference. stupid book. stupid, unbelievably strained premise to make an invalid point. rant off.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by T@T

NASA fails. No new info at all. It was shown August 30th on Morgan Freemans "threw the wormhole" EP-5.

Felicia Wolf Simon was the scentist who discovered it.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/throu...d-we-get-here/

Fast forward to 33:30

lol man I need to finish that series, stopped at 3; was hesitant after hearing about the 1st ep being about God but that ended up being somewhat interesting anyhow.

I wouldn't say NASA fails, more like this shows you how many people watch anything science related, I mean who has time to learn when dancing with the stars is on at the same time!

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

I don't know about the evolutionary consequences.

However, from a catalysis / biological structure-function perspective I find this extremely interesting. Multiple enzymes in our body act based on recognition of phosphorous-based structures. This discovery suggests that these bacteria could have analogous mechanisms which function through discretely different routes.

What would be even more interesting is whether the substitution of arsenic actually allows these organisms to use mechanisms that are not analogous to what the rest of us phosphorous-loving organisms use.

In English, I think this is similar to finding an engine in some barn that generates horsepower like the engines we know*, but uses a completely different fuel. When you dissect that engine, you'll either find that:

1) the tools you're using today can be easily modified in ways you didn't think possible so that you can use another brand new type of fuel.

2) the inside of the engine shows you ingenious variations on the combustion mechanism we all know and love.

Both possibilities are exciting, imo.


* i'm not making a john galt reference. stupid book. stupid, unbelievably strained premise to make an invalid point. rant off.

I'm completely with you on this one. I'm really interested in finding out if standard processes like phosphorylation of saccharides are undergoing analogous arsenylation pathways. . . or maybe something completely different.

I don't know about this being Nobel prize material but it is an interesting discovery nonetheless.

[photon]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I think this news is just as interesting as extraterrestial life. This really bolsters the theory that abiogenesis actually isn't that uncommon, but is difficult to detect because on our life-filled planet, any abiogenesis gets lost in the noise and is probably either immediately swallowed up by pre-existing life forms or mistaken for pre-existing life-forms. But in a poisonous lake, none of that noise exists and so these arsenic life forms can actually survive long-enough to be observed.

I'm really curious to see what the creationists and intelligent designists do with this info.

Unfortunately this discovery doesn't really fall along these lines, it isn't a life form from a completely separate and different abiogenesis event, it's simply an organism that has incorporated arsenic, it is a eukaryote just like you and me, from the same family tree.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/no...-about-aliens/

[Sly]

Awww what a let down... I thought they were going to post pics of Aliens...........

[Thor]

PZ Meyers a prominent biologists also adds to the wet blanket on this news.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...based_life.php

So what does it all mean? It means that researchers have found that some earthly bacteria that live in literally poisonous environments are adapted to find the presence of arsenic dramatically less lethal, and that they can even incorporate arsenic into their routine, familiar chemistry.

It doesn't say a lot about evolutionary history, I'm afraid. These are derived forms of bacteria that are adapting to artificially stringent environmental conditions, and they were found in a geologically young lake — so no, this is not the bacterium primeval. This lake also happens to be on Earth, not Saturn, although maybe being in California gives them extra weirdness points, so I don't know that it can even say much about extraterrestrial life. It does say that life can survive in a surprisingly broad range of conditions, but we already knew that.

So it's nice work, a small piece of the story of life, but not quite the earthshaking news the bookmakers were predicting.

[Boo Radley]

Originally Posted by T@T

NASA fails. No new info at all. It was shown August 30th on Morgan Freemans "threw the wormhole" EP-5.

Felicia Wolf Simon was the scentist who discovered it.

Originally Posted by Thor

I wouldn't say NASA fails, more like this shows you how many people watch anything science related, I mean who has time to learn when dancing with the stars is on at the same time!

No Fail here.

Felicia Wolf Simon is the lead author on the Science Express article published Dec 2 online reporting these findings (Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1197258). She works with NASA and US Geological Survey. I did not see the press conference though I suspect it was to mark the official publication of their results.

As expected they are much more reserved in drawing conclusions and speculating on the significance of their findings in the Science paper compared with the Morgan Freeman video.

The work is very interesting. They report that the bacterium is able to grow in a high arsenate low phosphate environment. They also determine that the organism incorporates arsenate into many biomolecules including proteins, lipids and DNA. However, they do not have any actual structure.

Though these findings are not the E.T. that some people were speculating (or hoping for) it importantly broadens our knowledge on how life can adapt to survive. Yes, we already know that life can thrive in the strangest of places (see Edmontonians and Archae) and these organisms adapt. These bacterium seem special in their ability to overcome a chemical problem. The toxicity of arsenate stems from its close chemical resemblance to phosphates. Arsenates are readily incorporated into biomolecules in place of phosphates, however, the corresponding arsenates are much less stable and breakdown faster. Hence, the problem for humans/other organisms that rely on the stability of phosphates and lack coping mechanisms to deal with the arsenates. The question is then how do these organisms cope with the change in chemistry?

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Thor

PZ Meyers a prominent biologists also adds to the wet blanket on this news.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...based_life.php

He is right though. It is interesting news, but mostly just a publicity grab for NASA.

The Earth is literally filled with many habitats that are "poisonous" or "inhospitable" relative to an organisms evolutionary path - yet we do find that some organisms can adapt to live there, and this is just one more.

I wouldn't even say this is a bigger leap than discovering thermotrophs or chemotrophs... Heck, the first hominid realizing that there were animals living in the ocean was probably a bigger breakthrough.

edit: And after reading that whole thing, it sounds like all they proved was that this bacteria can be very resilient when you increase the amount of arsenic in their environment and may be substituting it for phosphorus in its biochemistry.... but it also states that even though they can get by like that, they don't necessarily do well under those conditions. If an organism does not do well in their environment, even if they survive for a couple of generations, it can have long term negative consequences for the species as a whole.