Believe in aliens? 86% of CNN readers do too.
No comments
CNN had a poll on their website yesterday, December 3, asking their readers if they think life exists on other planets. A whopping 86% said they do. Out of 195.175 readers, 166.892 believe we are not alone in the universe. That’s a lot of people.
But maybe this doesn’t come as a surprise the day after NASA announces they have found a new type of bacteria that completely changes the way we need to approach biology. The tiny microbes scooped up from the mud at the bottom of a Californian lake can use arsenic instead of phosphorous as a part of their molecular structure.
It sounds boring, but the implications are huge. The microbes not only thrive on arsenic (which is notoriously poisonous to all previously known lifeforms), they can even incorporate it into their DNA. This completely changes what we previously believed to be the essential building blocks of life.
All previously known lifeforms require six fundamental building blocks to even exist — carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulphur. This is no longer the case, as the newly found microbes have substituted phosphorous for arsenic.
This means we need to broaden our search for extraterrestrial life, as we now know that life is even more adaptable than previously thought. But no matter how resistant and adaptable lifeforms we find here on Earth, one important question remains unanswered — is life as we know it a freak accident, or is the universe filled to the brim with all kinds of unimaginable lifeforms?
I’m with the 86% on this one.
CHECK OUT THESE RELATED POSTS OR LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW
Trackbacks