The discovery is great. The first known organism on Earth can live and reproduce using arsenic, a toxic ingredient for life as we know (knew) until now. A bug in their cells replacing arsenic by phosphorus. Spectacular. Expected.
say that does not surprise me much, really, because for years I reporting about life in hydrothermal vents of the sea, where several species of beings eat poisons dissolved in water at 400 degrees Celsius, and never see sun. An ecosystem that is governed by the heat of his own star, the Earth's interior.
However, the discovery of astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe Simon is very important because this bug does not just breathe, bathe and eat arsenic, but is doing something new: he is writing parts of his body to base not match, like all other creatures, including us, but on the basis of arsenic . The match is part of the DNA backbone.
Chemically speaking, the substance is a chameleon because it behaves similarly to phosphorus, but breaks metabolic channels, or causes a terrible roll in the metabolism of all that is alive.
If this new organism (which is a kind of bacteria that belongs to a relatively common form) is building its DNA with arsenic, wow ... one can imagine many other things. It is possible that the bug stop for years and years to adapt to alkaline environment, super salty and full of arsenic where it was discovered that lake, Mono Lake, California.
is true that the definition of life has taken a new twist. However, this does not (yet) that NASA has found ET ... as I have been terribly shouted from the rooftops in some quarters.
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