Today Mono Lake, tomorrow the worlds!

[gryphonsegg]

Hey, we may not have found a silicon-based lifeform from another planet yet, but Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues have discovered a lifeform that can use arsenic in place of phosphorus right here on Earth. Being a basic building block of life-- It's not just for carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur anymore. Besides being a really cool discovery in and of itself, this shows that life is more flexible than many of us previously accepted. It also means that our chances of finding life on nearby extraterrestrial bodies are better than we thought, and searchers for extraterrestrial life have a longer list of ingredients to look for.