… and the beginning of a new era in biology and astronomy.
Wow! Wow, wow WOW!
NASA scientists have found a microorganism that is based not on carbon, as is the case with all previously known life forms, but arsenic.
The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don’t have to be like planet Earth. Like NASA’s Ed Weiler says: "The definition of life has just expanded. 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."
Talking at the NASA conference, Wolfe Simon said that the important thing here is that this breaks our ideas on how life can be created and grow, pointing out that scientists will now be looking for new types of beings and metabolism that not only uses arsenic, but other element substitutions.
via NASA Finds New Life (Updating live).