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New bacteria life form GFAJ-1
When driving to work this morning, I heard a report on the radio saying that at 5pm Brazil time, NASA would be making an announcement and that they will “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” 

This sounded intriguing and exciting. I am sure that many people hearing this would have speculated about what whether some evidence had been found to confirm an alien life form, something from outer Space – I know this is what I was thinking about!

So I have to confess that listening to the details of the NASA announcement later today, and the discovery of a new life on Earth, I was a little disappointed.

This in no way detracts from the excellent research conducted by NASA scientist, Felisa Wolfe Simon and her team, who have found in Mono Lake, California, a microorganism called  GFAJ-1, which is unlike any other thus far known to man.

It was previously thought that all life on Earth was made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. And every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest mammal shares the same DNA blocks. However, this new bacteria is completely different - instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism uses poisonous arsenic for its building blocks, forming a completely different DNA.  Arsenic is an element that is poisonous to all other living creature on planet Earth, except for a few specialized microscopic creatures.

Undoubtedly, this changes our idea of how life can develop. We must be open to finding very different life forms to those that we know. I just wish the news had been related to the discovery of a new life from Space, something that I am sure exists and I only hope it is discovered in my life time. 

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Currently running on the Discovery channel at the moment is a new cosmology series called  'Into The Universe', with world famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking giving us the ultimate guide to the universe.

One suggestion that he makes (and one that I would also tend to agree with) is that in a universe with 100 billion galaxies, each containing many hundreds of millions of stars, it is highly unlikely that planet Earth is                                                                                                                    the only place where life has evolved.  

Not rocket science really - more a matter of common sense and logic!

According to Prof Hawking the only real challenge is in working out what the alien life forms might be like - from tiny microbes or little worms, through to something all together more advanced than mankind itself. And we should be warned he says as contact with alien life could spell disaster for the human race!

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians"

He could have a point but let's hope not!
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