NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.
Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.
"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters 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."
This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.
Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.
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The implications can be realized as follows:
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2) The possibility that not all known lifeforms in the Universe are Carbon based
3) This increases the possibility of finding life elsewhere in the Universe if Arsenic life is possible, because as far as we know, Carbon lifeforms can only survive in an Earth-like planet
4) And it can be assumed that Arsenic life should not require Earth-like planet conditions to develop
5) If we assume that most extrasolar planets are not similar to Earth, thus we can safely say that the probability of non Carbon based lifeforms developing on these planets is higher
6) It has also been speculated before that Silicon based lifeforms are possible too, due to Silicon having similar elemental properties to Carbon