A poem for materialists

From Poems and Fancies (1653) by Margaret Cavendish, “The joyning of severall Figur’d Atomes make other Figures”: Severall Figur’d Atomes well agreeing,  When joyn’d, do give another Figure being.  For as those Figures joyned, severall waies,  The Fabrick of each severall Creature raise. 

Is the As-bacterium overhyped? ctd

Carl Zimmer, writing in Slate, considers the evidence: None of the scientists I spoke to ruled out the possibility that such weird bacteria might exist. Indeed, some of them were co-authors of a 2007 report for the National Academies of Sciences on alien life that called for research into, among other things, arsenic-based biology. But [...]

Is the As-bacterium overhyped?

Obnoxious-even-when-he’s-right atheist and University of Minnesota Morris biologist PZ Myers says “yes.”  The Weiner sequence, it appears, has played out again. My own speculation that the bacterium might represent the trunk of a new evolutionary tree does now seem, as I expected, reckless. The piece is long, but non-technical, so bear with us. Here’s the [...]

More on the As-bacterium discovery

It’s probably not good that I’m getting this much of my science news through Gawker outlets, but io9′s Alasdair Wilkins provides a sober rundown of NASA’s latest bombshell. One member of the panel that made the announcement, Dr. James Elder, an expert on phospherus, talked about potential industrial application of the bacteria:   [Elder said] arsenic-based [...]

Newly discovered bacteria redefines possibilities of biochemistry

What can life be made of? Stanislaw Lem imagined beings made of ice, of uranium, and of precious gems. Now, NASA scientists have discovered organisms made of arsenic. Via Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz: NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. [...]

Oxygen discovered on moon of Saturn, could (but probably doesn’t) indicate life

Via the Guardian: A spacecraft has tasted oxygen in the atmosphere of another world for the first time while flying low over Saturn’s icy moon, Rhea. Nasa’s Cassini probe scooped oxygen from the thin atmosphere of the planet’s moon while passing overhead at an altitude of 97km in March this year. Until now, wisps of [...]