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Possibility of silicon-based life grows


The Caspian Hare

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Science fiction has long imagined alien worlds inhabited by silicon-based life, such as the rock-eating Horta from the original Star Trek series. Now, scientists have for the first time shown that nature can evolve to incorporate silicon into carbon-based molecules, the building blocks of life on Earth.

As for the implications these findings might have for alien chemistry on distant worlds, "my feeling is that if a human being can coax life to build bonds between silicon and carbon, nature can do it too," said the study's senior author Frances Arnold, a chemical engineer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The scientists detailed their findings recently in the journal Science.

Carbon is the backbone of every known biological molecule. Life on Earth is based on carbon, likely because each carbon atom can form bonds with up to four other atoms simultaneously. This quality makes carbon well-suited to form the long chains of molecules that serve as the basis for life as we know it, such as proteins and DNA. [The Search for Life on Mars in Pictures]

Still, researchers have long speculated that alien life could have a completely different chemical basis than life on Earth.

http://www.livescience.com/58727-silicon-based-alien-life-possible.html

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  • The title was changed to Possibility of silicon-based life grows
 

One way that silicon life might develop is to base itself on long, silicon-oxygen-silicon, chain-like molecules, with methyl (CH3) radicals linked to the silicon atoms. Such molecules are known as silicones. Due to their ability to withstand heat, such molecules might allow life to exist in planets considered too hot for life as we know it.

      

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If this were possible, and it may well be, and we stumbled onto it, would we recognize it as life or a rock?

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Perhaps this will develop into the metamorphosis of biology and computer.

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If silicon-based life was based on silicones, it would probably seem, variously, more like a liquid, gel, or rubber, than rock. Not too different from the our skin, flesh, and bodily fluids.   

Edited by bison
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