now we have arsenic eating life are crystals silicon based life?

I was taught that crystal is not a life form because it does not fulfil all the things that a living thing is supposed to be able to do

such as

answers.yahoo.com...

All living things are capable of reacting to stimuli, reproduction, growth and maintenance as a stable whole. An organism may be unicellular or made up, like humans, of many billions of cells divided into specialized tissues and organs.

end of quote

so now that we are finding ever more diverse life and finding it in more and more diverse places and even have found life that thrives on poison

such as

www.dailytelegraph.com.au...

The excitement lies in the bug’s ability to eat and thrive on arsenic, one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet. It can even incorporate arsenic into its DNA, making it part of its very being.

All 'known' life requires six fundamental elements - carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulphur - which provide the building materials for DNA, proteins and fats.

As every other form of known life uses phosphorus rather than arsenic as a key building block of its DNA, the find suggests that a second form of life is with us, right here one Earth.

end of quote

so now , I suspect that with further study and research perhaps we will find that some rocks and in particular crystal are actually living things but silicon based and not carbon based

what do others think?

them poor wittle buggies that were fed arsenic survived because they were able to incorporate it into their DNA and replace some of phosphorous with it. but then again those bacteria were fished out from a lake with a high concentration of arsenic.

one thing that`s baffling in all of science to me is how physics laws that hold true on Earth considered the same for the whole Universe. biochemistry is not an exception. that`s why NASA is looking for the signs of water in outer space.

Well maybe crystal is now... How crazy right? We might as well just figure everything is a life form and work from there.

Originally posted by ZELDAR
Well maybe crystal is now... How crazy right? We might as well just figure everything is a life form and work from there.

and doesnt that come full circle to the beliefs of ancients? they believed everything was alive [for example Australian Aboriginals believe that walking on the earth is massaging mother earth's back]

isn that interesting! Perhaps life such as silicon based is right here alongside us and we are unable to recognise it as life

hrmm, no one remembers this, but was once oxygen was poisonous to us.. Oh yes.

We need it now, but it could kill us.

Before photosynthesis, this planet was really nasty.

but never the less, we - they - it - them - struggled through it. Persistent buggers I'll say!

Arsenic? Is that like uranus for the lungs?

Originally posted by megabyte
for example Australian Aboriginals believe that walking on the earth is massaging mother earth's back

Which one? I don't know him.

Are you sure?

Sounds like he was lieing to you.

Originally posted by badw0lf

Originally posted by megabyte
for example Australian Aboriginals believe that walking on the earth is massaging mother earth's back

Which one? I don't know him.

Are you sure?

Sounds like he was lieing to you.

i saw an advert on tv - i forget what the advert was for - some travel program i think

on this advert they had an australian aboriginal person saying that walking on the earth accordign to the traditional beliefs of the tribe he came from - was actually massaging the earth's back

so if you wish to disagree with that please direct your complaints to the national geographic channel

ok?

To date, no known lifeforms are silicon based. Not all crystals contain silica. The most silicon rich crystals on earth are Quartz-Silicon Dioxide-Si2O.

Quartz crystals transfer vibrations at high and stable frequencies and some animals, aside from humans that is, use the crystals to aid in capturing food.

For example the Corolla Spider



While crystals are very versatile, and have varying properties, a crystalline form(regardless of the actual chemical make up and structure of the crystal itself)does not lend itself to supporting life. At least not on Earth.

Originally posted by projectvxn
To date, no known lifeforms are silicon based. Not all crystals contain silica. The most silicon rich crystals on earth are Quartz-Silicon Dioxide-Si2O.

Quartz crystals transfer vibrations at high and stable frequencies and some animals, aside from humans that is, use the crystals to aid in capturing food.

For example the Corolla Spider

While crystals are very versatile, and have varying properties, a crystalline form(regardless of the actual chemical make up and structure of the crystal itself)does not lend itself to supporting life. At least not on Earth.

you dont think crystal could be a life form? just not as we currently define life?

not in the way of supporting life but actually be alive?

we are stretching and changing the definition of what life is - I am just wondering if in future we will find that we had life forms that are rocks - just totally not as we currently describe life.

reply to post by megabyte


There's a difference between silicon-based theoretical life forms and silicate crystal structures.


Their creation requires conditions too volatile and unstable to form organic material that would conform to crystalline structures and be considered alive. You need environmental stability to form basic life, and you need it to maintain it long enough to from complex organic structures like plants and animals..You would also need lots of time to form the crystals the organic materials would grow from.

Carbon is very good at bonding life giving ingredients together. And while silicon shares some of these characteristics, the manner in which atoms bond to silicon changes the chemical structure or the material...In high heat and pressure environments this typically forms crystals, most notably, the quartz crystal-Material inside the silicon lattice structure would become what is known in the gemological world as an inclusion. Inclusions change the properties of the crystal in slight-to-noticeable ways. In corundum(Al2O3/Aluminum Oxide) crystal(sapphire/ruby), the inclusion of chromium oxide turns the crystal a bright blue, while iron oxide will color it more red...So forth and so on...Most often, the process of mashing these minerals and compounds together would destroy any organic materials.

This is not to say that crystalline forms aren't found in organic materials...DNA, for instance, has a semi-crystalline structure, but that doesn't make DNA a crystal.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by megabyte

 

There's a difference between silicon-based theoretical life forms and silicate crystal structures.


Their creation requires conditions too volatile and unstable to form organic material that would conform to crystalline structures and be considered alive. You need environmental stability to form basic life, and you need it to maintain it long enough to from complex organic structures like plants and animals..You would also need lots of time to form the crystals the organic materials would grow from.

Carbon is very good at bonding life giving ingredients together. And while silicon shares some of these characteristics, the manner in which atoms bond to silicon changes the chemical structure or the material...In high heat and pressure environments this typically forms crystals, most notably, the quartz crystal-Material inside the silicon lattice structure would become what is known in the gemological world as an inclusion. Inclusions change the properties of the crystal in slight-to-noticeable ways. In corundum(Al2O3/Aluminum Oxide) crystal(sapphire/ruby), the inclusion of chromium oxide turns the crystal a bright blue, while iron oxide will color it more red...So forth and so on...Most often, the process of mashing these minerals and compounds together would destroy any organic materials.

This is not to say that crystalline forms aren't found in organic materials...DNA, for instance, has a semi-crystalline structure, but that doesn't make DNA a crystal.

edit on 5-12-2010 by projectvxn because: (no reason given)

that is so very informative that I feel thoroughly educated

thanks for all that information

reply to post by megabyte


I recommend looking into gemology for beginners. There are plenty of books and cheap courses on the subject. Gems and other crystals are very interesting especially when you realize just how much of our lives they influence. There are many different kinds of crystals made of different basic compounds.

Opal(hydrated silica) is kind of an exception here...It's "fossilized" water trapped in silica. It's not a perfect crystal structure. Crystals have ordered atomic structures that give them their shape and contribute greatly to their strength. Opals are not like this. They also require that you soak them in water for long term storage because they dry out, crack, and crumble otherwise. They are truly organic...but they fail the test of a true crystal.