

NASA 'alien life' announcement leaked - ljf
http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/12/02/nasa-announcement-leaked-nasa-arsenic-announcement-thursday-leaked/

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RiderOfGiraffes
Choose your news source for this story:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962894> \- go.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962893> \- nytimes.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962846> \- nature.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962696> \- longislandpress.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962386> \- gizmodo.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962200> \- gizmodo.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962110> \- google.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1957823> \- skymania.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1953228> \- kottke.org

~~~
bradfordw
You can even follow ArsenicBacteria on the twitters.

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gort
Nature News:
[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101202/full/news.2010.645.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101202/full/news.2010.645.html)

[Edit] They are calling it a member of the Halomonadaceae, which means it is
descended from the common ancestor of that group, and so does not represent a
second, independant origin of life.

~~~
vinhboy
You know what I don't get. Why is this NASA news?

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cryptoz
The scientists that made the discovery work for NASA. Edit: That is to say,
the work that led to this discovery was funded by NASA, and was done to gain
information about how to look for life on other planets.

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teilo
From everything I have read so far, it seems that this is not so much a case
of life evolving separately, but rather a simple, albeit unique, case of
natural selection.

If a bacteria could evolve to tolerate arsenic, it could then use arsenic as a
substitute for phosphorus. That appears to be the case with the Mono Lake
species.

Yes, it opens up the possible chemical signatures for life to be found
elsewhere, but I would hardly call it "alien life".

~~~
aditya
Depends on how you define "alien", right? Alien as in different from human,
then this qualifies. Alien as in extraterrestrial (ie. not originating on
Earth), then this doesn't.

The bigger question, in my mind, is can you evolve a sentient species (in a
few million years) from this microbe? And what would happen if we threw this
microbe on Mars or Venus? Would natural selection allow it to thrive there?

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ryandvm
Does Julian Assange have no limits?

[I'm saving my insightful commentary on extraterrestrial life for the Hacker
News post _after_ the press conference...]

~~~
kiiski
What does Julian Assange have to do with this? I didn't see any mention of him
or wikileaks in the article.

~~~
cypherpunks01
The joke being that Assange leaked the announcement before the press
conference, if that wasn't clear enough... : )

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ericb
If this is true, life evolving twice right here would have implications for
what we would plug into the Drake equation, and make the deafening silence so
far even a bit more eerie.

edit: It sounded like a separate evolutionary path initially before the actual
announcement--that is what I was saying "if this is true" about.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Why would we expect anything other than silence? The universe is big, but time
is long.

The chances of two active technological species overlapping in time is pretty
low. I'd expect to find a lot of ruins and artifacts out there.

~~~
ceejayoz
> The chances of two active technological species overlapping in time is
> pretty low.

There are some pretty big assumptions about how long a technological species
lasts in that statement.

~~~
sfphotoarts
... and likely _accurate_ assumptions, if the last 100 years is anything to go
on.

~~~
ceejayoz
There are lots of alternative explanations proposed. Quick transitions into
more advanced, less detectable communication technologies, for example.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Or less detectable life-forms. I.e. we're wired to ascribe intelligence to
human-like intelligence. Something radically different or developed might not
look like intelligence to us.

E.g. Are those proto-stars in a nebula? Or is that some transcendent
intelligence's weekend project or substrate or waste matter?

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ljf
Which marries with the speculation from yesterday:

[http://skymania.com/wp/2010/11/alien-life-form-is-here-on-
ea...](http://skymania.com/wp/2010/11/alien-life-form-is-here-on-earth.html/)

(Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1957823> )

~~~
ljf
The live announcement will be viewable here:
<http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html>

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psadauskas
Phil Plait on Bad Astronomy has a really good write-up about it, and why it
matters to exobiology:
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/02/na...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/02/nasas-
real-news-bacterium-on-earth-that-lives-off-arsenic/)

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jim_h
Article from 2 years ago on the 'Arsenic-loving bacteria'
[http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/August/15080802....](http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/August/15080802.asp)

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andreyf
I think I remember my dad telling me of this as theoretically possible in the
early 90's (he's a biologist).

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T_S_
If it didn't use DNA I'd be even more impressed.

It's great that they leaked it, though. My 9th graders' science class is going
to tune in live, thanks to the leak. Good opportunity to make science seem
timely and relevant to kids.

~~~
ceejayoz
Technically, it's not DNA, as it lacks the phosphate groups that are in
DNA/RNA nucleotides.

~~~
T_S_
Your point is well-taken. I was reacting to the early hype that suggested
these bugs may have originated completely independently of other life on
earth. If the organism evolved to use arsenic as a replacement for phosphate
in a DNA-like chemical, I'm not sure if the independent origins hypothesis is
really warranted. The Nature summary I saw today did not mention anything like
that. The nature of hype I guess.

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mfukar
I knew they couldn't keep their mouth shut.

