Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Its importance, as far as life elsewhere in the universe is concerned, is that it opens up the very real possibility of life based on arsenic rather than phosphorus in places such as Saturn's moon Titan.
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Maybe-- and maybe not. All it proves is that it is possible for life that uses phosphorus to adapt to using arsenic. It doesn't prove that it is possible to start with arsenic in the first place. (There may or may not be some block to that-- we still don't know.)
Either way, I don't think this says much of anything about Life As We Do Not Know It, because I don't expect life out past the snow line to be even remotely like life on Earth-- it is like saying that, because we can put snow chains on a Mazda, this proves that there can be Mazdas on Pluto.