NASA Finds New Life

It didn't say if any old lace was involved.

Life will find a way!

"How long before arsenic puppies and kittens are available on ebay?"

"Single Celled to Multi-Celled in just a few Generations"Boraas,M.E.,Seale,D.B., and Boxhorn,J.E.(1998) Evolutionary Ecology 12:153-164

Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102.

Time between multicelled life to puppy like land animals ~700Million years.

What concerns me is this data was known and available many moths ago. IOW this is not news. Question is "Why the ultra big hubbub about it? Is this leading up to a later more significant revelation?"

You don't have to fear the reptilians because humans are toxic to them? (As if being eaten were the only thing to fear from aliens). People will fear regardless simply because they are other, unknown/unknowable. The unshared history and lack of common ground alone would suffice to "alienate" the aliens.

My thoughts are "Could any species travel interstellar space without mature nanotech?" I fail to see how any species with mature nanotech could survive if they had members with psychotic or antisocial tendencies. Your mind will get made right, fixed, if you are not right in the head.

I realize this is a lot to infer from an announcement about microbes, but it was so much more than that.

These microbes THRIVED in a Phosphorus free environment. It's not just the phosphorus on the DNA that got swapped but every Phosphorus using molecule in the cell. For instance the cell membrane consists of Phospholipid bilayers. It must be constructed substituting Arsenic. The power molecules for EVERY active function of any cell are ADP & ATP, (the P stands for Phosphorus).
This is a much bigger deal than it is made out to be.

"I wonder if a silver ion version of hemoglobin/chlorophyll would produce a life form as different from us as we are from plants..... very possibly I guess."

Look into the blood of horseshoe crabs. :-)

FROM WIKI...

Unlike humans, horseshoe crabs do not have hemoglobin in their blood, but instead use hemocyanin to carry oxygen. Because of the copper present in hemocyanin, their blood is blue. Their blood contains amebocytes, which play a role similar to white blood cells for vertebrates in defending the organism against pathogens. Amebocytes from the blood of L. polyphemus are used to make Limulus amebocyte lysate, which is used for the detection of bacterial endotoxins.

Interesting. This ingredient from the crab is used in an automatic in line detection for bacteria in water supplies. In line and alarmed, controlled by SCADA and gives an immediate alarm if bacteria are present where they shouldn't be found. Lot of potential. The system was developed by friends (Dr. Ley, pictured, has been my mentor and suffered a recent serious stroke) .

Bacteria that have arsenic connections have long been suspected in groundwater. I don't believe these microbes substitute P but are implicated in releasing arsenic into the water supply. Sulfur bacteria reduce the ore arsenopyrite to mobilize arsenic. These same bacteria will mobilize lead from lead ores, and barium from barium ores. The consortium of bacteria in ground water are often exotic, so I would not be surprised to find such microbes as in the article in these so called alien environments. It is an understudied problem in ground water and can have further reaching benefits for astro-microbiologists and can be found on/in earth.

This could be a cure for arsenic poisoning if used quick enough? The bacteria would devour it, but die after it is used up.