FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[What's Burning?]

Arsenic...

[SennaVille]

Arsenic...

Hey, it's not life on Mars, but this is exciting stuff! I can't believe I linked an article on arsenic, it was totally random and only posted because of the book I just read by Paul Davies.

This is the equivalent to finding life on any planet. It proves that we don't need all the building blocks that we thought could sustain life, they've literally made a little alien species.

[texasmr2]

Its a shame that most of us will not be here when something significant is actually discovered . Not too say this is not significant as my meaning is more towards a 'world changing' discovery or a step forward for mankind that could not,would not nor has not been realized or accepted until it actually happens.

[darwin dali]

Give this a whole new meaning, doesn't it?
[youtube]oy2bxDw9qG0[/youtube]

[darwin dali]

Mono Lake was selected as a work site by Wolfe-Simon because it is highly unusual and had been well studied by other scientists trying to answer different questions.

The lake receives run-off from the Sierra Nevada mountains, which have relatively high concentrations of arsenic. When the water arrives at Mono Lake, it has nowhere to go because there are no rivers carrying water further downstream. That means the arsenic, and other elements and compounds, can concentrate to unusally high levels. Arsenic is present in Mono Lake at a concentration 700 times greater than what the EPA considers safe.

Wolfe-Simon was invited to use the Menlo Park, Calif., lab of the U.S. Geological Survey and was aided in her work by senior research scientist Ron Oremland, who has studied arsenic in Mono Lake for decades. The initial work was quite simple: She took mud from the briny as well as toxic lake into the lab and began growing bacteria in Petri dishes. She gradually replaced phosphate salt with arsenic until the surviving bacteria could grow without needing the phosphates at all.

The bugs, an otherwise common bacteria in the halomonadaceae family, thrived without phosphates and with lots of arsenic. She then determined that the arsenic was embedded in the core genetic and energy transfer systems of the bacteria - that it appeared to have replaced (or preceeded) the phosphorus.

As she explained, replacing phosphorus with arsenic may seem suicidal, but the two are very similar in their makeup. Arsenic is considered toxic because most living things take it in and treat it like phosphorus, only to be destroyed by the small differences.

She said that while small amounts of the phosphorus remained in the arsenic-based bugs, she was able to determine that it was definitely not enough to supply the presumed phosphorus needs of the cell. That, she said, was being done with the arsenic.

"Sometimes I'm asked why something like this has never been found before, and the answer is that nobody has run the experiment before," Wolfe-Simon said. "There was nothing really complicated about it - I asked a simple question that was testable and got an answer."

Wolfe-Simon said she hopes to further test her findings in northern Argentina, where, she's been told, some microbes can not only tolerate arsenic, but absolutely need arsenic to survive.

[texasmr2]

Dude thats soooo deep I'll finish reading it tomorrow. No seriously it looks like a great read but I'm about too passout, seriously!

[darwin dali]

Dude thats soooo deep I'll finish reading it tomorrow. No seriously it looks like a great read but I'm about too passout, seriously!

Honey, that's why I posted the clip first - that way you can look at pretty pictures

[The_Stig_Money]

Here is a article about the Arsenic life and the flaws behind NASA's finding

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101208/sc_yblog_thelookout/scientists-poking-holes-in-nasas-arsenic-eating-microbe-discovery

Im sure there are some holes in the theory but NASA has the best scientist in the world

We may not be spot on about life but thats what science is all about, updating knowledge

[darwin dali]

Here is a article about the Arsenic life and the flaws behind NASA's finding

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101208/sc_yblog_thelookout/scientists-poking-holes-in-nasas-arsenic-eating-microbe-discovery

Im sure there are some holes in the theory but NASA has the best scientist in the world

We may not be spot on about life but thats what science is all about, updating knowledge

I don't have to read that blog - just look at my post above that describes the 'discovery' in a bit more detail and how they arrived at it and you know (or at least I did) how lame it was. Not very excited about this news, really.

[What's Burning?]

Scientists are accustomed to questions on their research and know it's going to mean a trip back to the ...lab if it doesn't hold water.

[The_Stig_Money]

Here is another interesting place they found some of the building blocks of life.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20101215/sc_space/lifesbuildingblocksfoundonsurprisingmeteorite

With all these recent discoverys i think we are getting close

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

...NASA has the best scientist in the world....

Except that they still believe in MMGW, and Burt Rutan builds better rockets ...in his garage.

[What's Burning?]

...NASA has the best scientist in the world....

Except that they still believe in MMGW, and Burt Rutan builds better rockets ...in his garage.

Rockets are old hat, and MMGW deserves it's own thread so won't go deep here but to deny that it's happening whether MM or not, and to know that we CAN do something and choose not to for political/financial short term gains is foolish. You can't deny what the right thing to do is even if you argue the root cause, otherwise from now on, every time you're a "little" thirsty, buy the two liter bottle of soda at the quickie mart, take a few sips and throw the rest out since it would be the same philosophy.

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

NASA's prowess has declined precipitously since the Apollo days. The STS has never lived up to its design objectives of cheap, reliable, safe space flight and rapid turn-arounds. Both of NASA's proposed replacements were stillborn, principally because both failed to address the STS's frailties (and those of 'conventional' lifting bodies in general). Their ineptitude has left the US completely and utterly without a manned space programme. Half a century after pioneering space flight, now America are resorting to hiring their old arch nemesis the Russians to ferry their "astronauts" into space.

If JFK were alive today, the news would kill him.

America's astronauts used to number among the most revered aviators in the world. Now they're just payload in a Soyuz.

The next footprints on the moon likely will be from a Dr. Scholl's sandal worn by a space tourist riding in a Burt Rutan rocket.

[darwin dali]

NASA's prowess has declined precipitously since the Apollo days. The STS has never lived up to its design objectives of cheap, reliable, safe space flight and rapid turn-arounds. Both of NASA's proposed replacements were stillborn, principally because both failed to address the STS's frailties (and those of 'conventional' lifting bodies in general). Their ineptitude has left the US completely and utterly without a manned space programme. Half a century after pioneering space flight, now America are resorting to hiring their old arch nemesis the Russians to ferry their "astronauts" into space.

If JFK were alive today, the news would kill him.

America's astronauts used to number among the most revered aviators in the world. Now they're just payload in a Soyuz.

The next footprints on the moon likely will be from a Dr. Scholl's sandal worn by a space tourist riding in a Burt Rutan rocket.

Footprints will be Chinese