“It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.”

   

How about a song to go with the pics? Click here.

All together: “There’s Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow...”

A scientific paper published in the last couple of days caught Slicer’s eye and interest. It begs the question, 'What is/are elemental to being?'

It is intriguing to learn that, not only can life survive in more hostile environments than we had imagined, but it can actually be constructed from different elements in the periodic table than those we had considered to be the core essentials/only options. The long-established scientific understanding has been that Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulphur (CHNOPS) are the options and requirements from which to construct the macromolecules we associate with living organisms eg nucleic acids (such as DNA), proteins and lipids – life as we know it. The investigators from Arizona State University harvested Strain GFAJ-1 of the Halomonadaceae family (Gram-negative rods requiring high sodium chloride concentrations for growth) of Gammaproteobacteria from the mud of California’s Mono Lake, which is extremely salty with naturally high levels of Arsenic, and then grew them in a phosphate-depleted, arsenic-rich medium. 

It has been known for some time that some microbes (dubbed  “extremophiles”) can exist in extreme environments, use alternative chemicals as energy sources, and even to photosynthesize, but this is the first occasion where an organism has been found to incorporate an alternative to the CHNOPS building blocks to form DNA. What is particularly intriguing is that the element which has been successfully incorporated by the bacterium (under lab conditions) into its coding and reproductive apparatus is Arsenic – a substance almost universally toxic to life forms on earth because of its interference with energy availability/processing within cells, and possibly with nucleic acid synthesis. Although the research has been over-hyped in the news media,

it does show that, in principle, life could exist elsewhere in the universe which might be constructed from different building blocks – and we may be looking for it in the wrong places, using the wrong tools.

The study’s authors have previously speculated (naughty naughty!) that such “alien” life may actually co-exist with conventional life on earth in what has been termed a “shadow biosphere,” and that we’ve missed it, again because we’re using the wrong tools and looking in the wrong places, or looking but not seeing.... This looks like another example of “things aren’t always just what they seem,” as described by Slicer in an earlier blog.

Regardless of whether or not such a shadow biosphere exists, it’s clear that life is capable of being more diverse than most of us had imagined. (Douglas Adams is an obvious exception here with his description of the Hooloovoo species of alien - a hyperintelligent shade of the colour blue).

Car manufacturers have dared to consider another type of car, and the name does sound so much better in Italian....:

but even these talented guys with such an imagination didn’t step outside the CHNOPS set of options.... 

Have we considered other kinds/ways of being? Are there ways we haven’t considered/haven’t even imagined? Could we be transformed? Should we be open to the possibility? Most of us get comfortable with what’s familiar – so whilst we might be happy to be entertained by the likes of Tom & Barbara Good of The Good Life,

we tend to keep potential alternative lifestyles as a spectator sport. Slicer confesses that as a teenager he was more attracted to the TV programme by Felicity Kendal than by any particular personal interest in self-sufficiency with respect to home-grown veg or pigs.... He did dabble a bit with a vegetable patch as a kid but has recently been put off ever trying again by the size of his friend’s courgettes... there are pictures on the internet... Oh er, matron!

In the study, despite the hype, it was clear that the bacteria still thrived more in the presence of adequate phosphorus than when incorporating arsenic – but this wasn’t particularly highlighted by the news media who were more intrigued by the incorporation of a normally poisonous substance. How do we survive if we’re in a poisoned environment? Would we recognise it if we saw it? Are we so adapted to our environment that we don’t notice things that we incorporate unconsciously, when there might be a better alternative by which we could live better.

As a man once said “Live long and prosper”..... he was of 2 different make-ups.... and these elements sound strangely familiar, Christmassy even.

Are we just talking science fiction?

 

Comments

[ericmakesthree]

first of all zucinni envy is a sad state of affairs - but yes - i also dreamt of coming home to some homemade rhubarb wine with felicity kendall............

[The Slicer]

Slicer notes recent controversy over the validity of NASA's Halomonas paper:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/07/08/live-blogging-arsenic-life
Slicer did call the original paper's authors naughty, and suggested journalistic hype. Redfield has gone further...