When NASA first announced today's big press conference, speculation on the web ran wild, with many predicting they were going to say they'd finally found alien life.
Well, they sort of did find a new life form, but it's here on Earth, and it's not exactly alien. And it wasn't so much found as it was concocted.
NASA's Newly Discovered Arsenic-Loving Bacteria Are Fascinating, but Not Aliens
Still, expanding what qualifies as "life" at a fundamental level makes the probabilities of finding extra-terrestrial life even greater.
Well, they sort of did find a new life form, but it's here on Earth, and it's not exactly alien. And it wasn't so much found as it was concocted.
NASA's Newly Discovered Arsenic-Loving Bacteria Are Fascinating, but Not Aliens
All life as we know it depends on six key ingredients — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. This bacteria can switch from phosphorus to arsenic — usually a deadly toxin — and use it for metabolism and growth. It can swap arsenic for phosphorus so completely that arsenic is incorporated into its DNA, according to the study unveiled today.
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