Updates to this story
Strapped for cash organisation NASA claims that research it funded will, er, fundamentally change the shape of biology textbooks to come.
There is a rather unlovely place in America called Mono Lake (pictured) and boffins fiddling around in the water claim to have discovered a micro-organism that uses arsenic rather than phosphorous to reproduce.
Said Ed Weller, NASA’s associate administrator in Washington: “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”
It is unclear why NASA wants to seek signs of life in the solar system when we already know there is life on earth. Even in the toxic Mono Lake, apparently. The real question is whether there is intelligence on earth.
Arsenic has long been known to one of the mammalian species on the planet to be a good way to do away with mammalians-you-don’t-like.
Famous victims of arsenic poisoning – it’s not always clear whether they were done in by it or not – include Napoleon Bonaparte, Simon Bolivar, Francesco I de’Medici, and Charles Francis Hall (who he? Ed).
According to an encyclopaedia called Wikipedia, systems of arsenic poisoning begin with headaches, confusion and drowsiness. Sounds like a bad hangover, but worse is to come before you croak.
The poisoning was particularly popular with the Borgias, a dynasty that seemed to be interested in bumping off rivals. Thank goodness the Renaissance was followed by the Enlightenment, meaning that now in the 21st century we are all rational creatures and that.
NASA says that carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus (sic) and what it calls sulfur (sic) are the basic building block of earthlingy things. So to find a micro-organism on earth that uses arsenic – no it’s not called assnic - rather than phosphorous, first extracted from wee, no not the Wii, is a real find.
I can’t remember the 1950s science fiction author who first postulated that there could be silicon based life as well as carbon based life in the universe. If only he hadn’t written it. It’s resulted in Intel, surely the biggest Borg of all time in our solar system. Borg is unrelated to the Borgias.
The NASA report is here.
How about life-forms based on elements other than carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur? Or is there something special about these elements, other than phosphorus?
here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic
Most of todays news is covered from long time ago. However, Now Bacteria have name, that Love Arsenic.
Multi Cellular, No Go. Arsenic replaces hydrogen with oxygen, Often fits where phosphorous fits & comes in 3 styles. Grey,Yellow & Black. Yellow being waxey.
Called metaloid. Arsenic Is Bad for Blood & soups Up Nerves. Causing Collaspe of Host. Lead Arsenic & other arssenics' are used in agriculture as Poison. Flush Out Arsenic or Die.
vondrashek arsehat specialist.
Today's writers are too blase' for camp kitsh - Today's actors are too trendy for farce and character acting. Did you ever see anybody in a power play act like they got any intelligence?
Yesteryear's screen and Broadway legends could do more with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide, than the Palins could ever shake a shtick at. Causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the simple mind.
When asked to comment on Todd's ballroom opportunity on Dancing With The Stars, Sarah Palin said, "I think that would have been cool to see, too."
And it was ever so the platitudinous bromide that you'd have sat to sulfur through.
Something about Sarah Palin reminds me of Lucretia Borgia. Now we are pursued by the huntress of a wolf, she is the most rapacious perhaps that this world has ever seen. And if we do not flee, she will inevitably bescumber by sharny to us all... It's Showtime, anyone?
The real Wiki Leaks are vapid talk. "What the weak head with strongest bias rules, - Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools."
"The Bossaro Vina Borgia is the color of a bright ruby. Perhaps the color of a jewel that would grace a noble woman's hand [sorry Sarah but we are talking Chicken of the Sea]. It is made from 100% Grenache, or garnacha [Not Grenadier, sunshine] as it is called in Spain, "My Fair Lady".
The nose is full of ripe berries. There are chewey tanins that accompany lush flavors. You will find jucy black cherry and spice flavors to play on your tongue. Truth, apropos of couth manner, euphemious diplomacy, polite society have all been shorn out by the rashness of the day-trader culture. The currency is built of lies and vice versa, the Voodoo economics of the Great Communicator.
Sold down the river at $6 a bottle, this is a steal worthy of hunting Alaskan brown bear.
Guess who's coming to dinner.
Mark, that never the twain shall mete... without their bearskins.
Hey Rich, you forgot to call someone a Bolshevik
rotflmao...
Cheers mate!
so which is it nasa?