NASA finds new life form

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic.

O_O

its a colony of exterminators.

this is awesome

otoh the idea that life could be built out of different blocks seems kinda "um, DUH!" to a lot of people, but nice to have some solid science behind it now

NASA finds life on Earth

looooooool Stan

"a bacteria"???

btw they maybe found life on another planet (cryptic NASA news conference announcement)

so instead they found life that is totally poisonous

cool

my ex-gf

BOOM

This is a little mind-blowing, but I'm not entirely clear on it. Are we talking about life that evolved on this planet, somehow completely separately from all other known life on this planet, or did it arrive here from somewhere else? What's the more likely assumption?

Life evolved via ILX.

Zing-based life forms.

this new life form that is poison based will surely evolve into the inheritors of the earth once we destroy the shit out of it. they can evolve to eat all of our garbage and fest on the nuclear waste.

or we can HARNESS IT

that would require a really small harness

news broken by rent on ♪♫ caek's corner ♪♫, always the first for news

i am so psyched on this

so caek, developed locally or blow-in? Would have thought the latter, or we'd have discovered before now?

the technical term for "blow-in" is "panspermia"

amirite guys?

We won't find out officially what this is about til 2pm, but it's NOT that they found life on another planet, according to various sources. Seems likely that they found arsenic-based life in California, and that either (a) it might have come from somewhere Else, many many years ago; or (b) it's just interesting as a model for expanding our search for extra-terrestrial life.

this is AMAZING
but
this article is still pretty essential for quelling hysterical anticipation:
http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/close_encounters_of_the_media.php

well, if it didn't form on earth it's not recent, so the fact that it's only just been discovered is more to do with how we've only been doing microbiology targeting extreme environments for like 25 years

Frank Capra's 'Arsenic and Outer Space', based on the play by Joseph Kesselring. Staring Cary 'Science Council' Grant.

kottke is the source of the speculation. literally ten seconds research on caek's corner would have told him this was not extraterrestrial life.

I guess those Save Mono Lake bumperstickers are working, kind of.

sickening, the state of science journalism

are you going to write the gawker article about this? feel like you should ~call kottke out~ on not taking blogging seriously.

yeah take that motherfucker OUT

we spliced from gizmodo

i cant wait to FUCK some new life forms!!!!!!

otoh the idea that life could be built out of different blocks seems kinda "um, DUH!" to a lot of people, but nice to have some solid science behind it now

― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, December 2, 2010 11:43 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

not really sure it's that DUH to many people, tbh!

also, really very curious as to what, precisely, the structure of this things DNA is. liiiiiike, is the arsenic just subbed straight in for phosphorous? is the rest of the DNA still comprised of purines/pyrimidines and sugars, but with As hanging off the side instead of P? does the cell run on adenosine triarsenate instead of ATP?

does it look smokin' in hotpants?

i want answers

and i do NOT want to wait 40 minutes

btw will there be a stream for this? apparently all i'm doing today is watching things get announced on the internet

it will be live on the news i'm sure. looking forward to whoever is anchoring bbc at the time fucking up the explanation.

Tappin' that As

whose DNA is completely alien

Uh, isn't DNA a very specific chemical? If it's completely alien,then it isn't DNA, it's something else. If it's DNA, then it's not completely alien, it's DNA. This is what is wrong with most journalists who write about science. They babble a lot of nonsense.

In 2008, bacteria were discovered that employ a version of photosynthesis in the absence of oxygen with arsenites as electron donors, producing arsenates (just like ordinary photosynthesis uses water as electron donor, producing molecular oxygen). Researchers conjecture that historically these photosynthesizing organisms produced the arsenates that allowed the arsenate-reducing bacteria to thrive. One strain PHS-1 has been isolated and is related to the γ-Proteobacterium Ectothiorhodospira shaposhnikovii. The mechanism is unknown, but an encoded Arr enzyme may function in reverse to its known homologues.[39]

for people wondering why different chemistry is a big deal, it's for two reasons (1) it approaches (but is not) proof of a second genesis on earth and (2) it increases the number of environments in which life could potentially exist, not just to literally phosphorus or arsenic, but also as a proof of principle that our way is not the only way.

re point (1), here is my explanation from earlier about why second genesis is a big deal:

if life has started once on earth it doesn't prove much about whether it started elsewhere, especially since, as far as we can tell, the odds against it are overwhelming. if it's started twice on earth than that doesn't just double the number of times we know it started. it also proves there's something wrong with our calculation of the odds, and they're not actually that remote. and that all but guarantees there is life elsewhere.

thinking about it, that would be the kind of news that would be so big they might get the president involved, so maybe it's just arsenic stuff.

note: i know nothing about biochem

The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.

whoa

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/science/03arsenic.html?hp

Uh, isn't DNA a very specific chemical? If it's completely alien,then it isn't DNA, it's something else. If it's DNA, then it's not completely alien, it's DNA. This is what is wrong with most journalists who write about science. They babble a lot of nonsense.

not strictly true. recall: DNA = deoxyribonucleic acid. the deoxyribo- part is a sugar moiety, the nucleic bit vaguely refers to the nucleotides/base pairing. phosphate hooks the sugars together. if you sub arsenic straight in for phosphate (as i was wondering above), you could still call the thing deoxyribonucleic acid, imo. now, i'm not up on my chemistry, but i think since arsenic is in the same column as phosphorous, i ~think~ it may have the same reactive properties required to be part of the backbone

many xps, didn't read em yet

I just wish I had stayed a bio major after sophomore year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/science/03arsenic.html?hp

― caek, Thursday, December 2, 2010 12:26 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

nytimes: "gbx otm"

we should be the in-house doctors at the nyt imo

caek and gbx will diagnose it for you

bigtime

This pdf is a dumbed-down version of the paper mentioned on caek's corner and was pretty readable to a non-scientist like me:
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/1482/version/1/files/npre20081482-1.pdf

When is the announcement? NASA TV schedule isn't loading for me

Caleb Scharf, a huge nerd at Columbia University who was not part of the research, said he was amazed. “It’s like if you or I morphed into fully functioning cyborgs after being thrown into a room of electronic scrap with nothing to eat,” he said.

colorful analogies is probably the best part about bein a scientist

lol

what's the takeaway from this?

wish i could muster interest

so it's sort of more nasa invents new life form than actually finding it right?

what happens when this thing escapes the lab?

You're first.

you've got to be fuckin kidding me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TevQS4qgE_Q

"A bacterium that uses arsenic in place of phosphorus breaks a golden rule of life on Earth, widening the scope of a hunt for life on other planets."

that is the takeaway nrq

~ho hum~

w/e

Thanks, gbx and caek. Interesting final paras in that NYT article:

Despite this taste for arsenic, the authors also reported, the GFAJ-1 strain grew considerably better when provided with phosphorus, so in some ways they still prefer a phosphorus diet. Dr. Joyce, from his reading of the paper, concurred, pointing out that there was still some phosphorus in the bacterium even after all its force-feeding with arsenic. He described it as “clinging to every last phosphate molecule, and really living on the edge.”

Dr. Joyce added, “I was feeling sorry for the bugs.”

jesus now they're just making it angry

ah, here we go

not working :(

like how this story has unfolded from "NASA discovers new 'alien' life forms" to "NASA discovers earth-based life forms with a completely different chemical base" to "NASA discovers that some extremophilic bacteria will, if forced to do so, substitute arsenic for phosphorous and barely survive, sort of"

Maybe change headline to, "NASA finds extremely, extremely tenacious life form".

where is your sense of wonder

Left it in my other jacket.

'NASA finds Tenacious D life form'

kill it before it makes a film

NO KILL I

(muffled sound of suffocated screams)

I guess those Save Mono Lake bumperstickers are working, kind of.

My favorite headline to come out of this: "Mono Lake: From Hippie Bumper Sticker to NASA Superstar"

Thanks, gbx and caek. Interesting final paras in that NYT article:

Despite this taste for arsenic, the authors also reported, the GFAJ-1 strain grew considerably better when provided with phosphorus, so in some ways they still prefer a phosphorus diet. Dr. Joyce, from his reading of the paper, concurred, pointing out that there was still some phosphorus in the bacterium even after all its force-feeding with arsenic. He described it as “clinging to every last phosphate molecule, and really livin' on the edge. ”
Dr. Joyce added, “I was feeling sorry for the bugs.”

― Aimless, Thursday, December 2, 2010 10:51 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkT7CQwuLZg&feature=related

better headline was on the bbc yesterday. "Nasa discovers lifeform that loves arsenic"

If Pixar make a movie about this, they should get Steven Tyler to be the voice of the bacteria.

like how this story has unfolded from "NASA discovers new 'alien' life forms" to "NASA discovers earth-based life forms with a completely different chemical base" to "NASA discovers that some extremophilic bacteria will, if forced to do so, substitute arsenic for phosphorous and barely survive, sort of"

― captayn cronch (crüt), Thursday, December 2, 2010 7:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol otm

distinct undertone of "nasa would like its budget not to be cut" too

tbf, it's a really big result, and it is relevant to how much resources we continue to put into astrobiology, because it shortens the odds on ET-type things considerably.

it's just not as big as a bunch of people who weren't nasa were speculating before the announcement had been released. nasa pr could perhaps have done a much better job of managing expectations, but there were a lot of v silly blog posts about this on tuesday.

v silly... but v well-written

i cant wait to FUCK some new life forms!!!!!!

LILF

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Meaningofliff1983sticker.jpg/200px-Meaningofliff1983sticker.jpg
LIFF = Lifeforms I'd Fucking Fuck

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/12/02/life_with_arsenic_whod_have_thought.php

in ur DNA changin ur phosphorous...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvN2ePq6v-w

rip

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/07/conduct-science

idk maybe???

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/20/mars_discovery_nasa_touts_curiosity_data_that_points_to_historic_discovery.html

"This data is gonna be one for the history books," John Grotzinger, the rover mission's principal investigator, told NPR last week for a the buzz-inciting segment that aired today.

For easy reference, here are some samples of things that made it into history books:

"About the same time, Garay the governor of Jamaica, fitted out three ships with an armed force to plant a colony on the Panuco, a river which pours into the Gulf a few degrees north of Villa Rica." From the History of the Conquest of Mexico, Prescott.

"[Oppenheimer] came home a more confident man. Harvard offered him a job; so did the young vigorous California Institute of Technology in Pasadena." From the Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rhodes.

"In the same letter [Alexander the Great] informed Parmenio - perhaps a little too insistently - that he had neither seen nor wante to see Darius' wife." From Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C., Green.

posts very much in character

killin me, nasa

wake me up when nasa finds life on uranus

http://www.2001spacesuit.com/Images/Pod015.jpg

Look at that caveman go.

http://dawn.com/2012/11/23/life-on-mars-maybe-not-nasa-rows-back-on-findings/

US President Barack Obama has vowed to send humans to the planet by 2030.

umm unless his last term is 20 years...

http://multipolarfuture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DatasHead.jpg

who cares it's just axl

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2011/11/AXL-FINAL.jpg

Look at that caveman go.

More likely to be a godawful small affair.

From the article linked above:

http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sam-670-x-350.jpg?w=670&h=350
This artist concept shows NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover. NASA downplayed Wednesday talk of a major discovery by its Martian rover after remarks by the mission chief raised hopes it may have unearthed evidence life once existed on the Red Planet.

Nice to see the cover artist of those 1990s Artificial Intelligence comps is still going strong...

??http://i40.tinypic.com/14chf6u.gifhttp://i40.tinypic.com/14chf6u.gif??http://i42.tinypic.com/287klqx.jpg??http://i40.tinypic.com/14chf6u.gifhttp://i40.tinypic.com/14chf6u.gif??

NASA has made a historic discovery that will shake the entire planet. This announcement will be released to the media on November 13th, 2013. It will be a day to remember and One for the history books. Spread the word to your family & friends and sign up to stay updated!

http://www.rememberthe13th.com/

Shake the entire planet! Plate tectonics?

what if the mars rover found weed on mars

jesus, watching nasa do PR in the internet era is excruciating. they are so bad at it. to be fair their education and outreach budget has been zero since the sequester, and i can't imagine the shutdown has improved things.

If I'm interpreting the image on that web site correctly, NASA is going to build a rocket that is so big that it's launch will shake the entire Earth (and also probably push the planet out of its orbit).

It also looks like they are going to cover the Moon with a giant NASA logo.

I can't wait.

Cool that the stars move when you move your mouse left/right.

Also cool that this website looks like it was made with construction paper.

" It will be a day to remember and One for the history books."

...they found Jesus?

He was on Mars all along

I don't think that's an official Nasa site though (/spoiler)

Ugh. Alex Jones.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread974237/pg1

Registrant Contact:
WhoisGuard, Inc.
WhoisGuard Protected ()

Fax:
P.O. Box 0823-03411
Panama, Panama NA
PA

ha ok

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1no6g4/what_you_think_nasa_will_reveal_at_november_13th/cckeb8y

Yeah, and I'd have to say that the author data in the html:

Bilderbergs (conference of uber-powerful people), FEMA, and NASA is a bit odd to say the least. Also, the fact that the grammar is poor should be a tip.

Also, its being hosted by a company called Dacentec, which isn't where NASA would probably host something like this.

And hosted on the same server (or at least at the same ip address) is this company: http://www.adixy.com/ which sells facebook fans and twitter follwers.

Also, the fact that the grammar is poor should be a tip.

haha bitter lols

Truthers are also wigged out about a "FEMA planned blackout drill" on November 13

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/09/blackout-for-november-confirmed-power-grid-drill-nov-13-14-2013-video-2778716.html
http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/09/07/when-the-lights-go-out-on-november-13-2013/
http://etheric.com/electric-grid-blackout-planned-november-13th-14th-2013/

remember the 6th now instead

*DUE TO CHANGE IN PLANS, WE WILL ANNOUNCE THIS DISCOVERY EARLIER THAN PREVIOUSLY EXPECTED. TUNE IN ON OCTOBER 6TH TO SEE WHAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT.

rememberthe6th.com then?

Remember, remember the sixth of Oct, er, -ember?

http://www.rememberthe13th.com/

looool

"The call is coming from inside the solar system."