I'm going to start off my blog with this amazingness:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20024450-52.html
A NASA fellow found a bacteria, GFAJ-1, in a California lake that contains high amounts of metals and salts. Other microbes share the bacteria's ability to survive in such harsh environments and utilize the element arsenic as an energy source but the bacteria just discovered can use arsenic in place of phosphorus (a necessary element to make DNA and therefore everything else in our bodies). This is cool because it's unlike any other life form that we know. It was already hard enough to define life and this just complicates things further. It gives more hope (or fear?) that we will find life somewhere else beyond earth's atmosphere.
Disclaimer: I am a huge dork. I make lame jokes, such as the title of this post. I also make up words sometimes. Just go with it, okely schmokely?
No comments:
Post a Comment