As it turns out, the Grinch's "three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce" might not be as deadly as we've been led to believe. Previously, scientists have been unable to find any form of life that could replace any one of the six major building blocks of life: carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and hydrogen. Earlier this week, NASA scientists announced the discovery of bacteria in Mono Lake, California that, due to a lack of environmental phosphorus, have been able to use the usually poisonous element arsenic in their cellular structure, DNA, RNA, etc. Although some scientists believe this discovery overestimates how much arsenic these bacteria actually use in their cellular structure, it is still pretty damn interesting to say the least.
The day before this announcement was made, Nature announced that scientists now estimate that the universe contains 300 sextillion stars (300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), three times the previous estimate. With each star, the probability of extraterrestrial life increases, since each one could be the sun for another planet capable of sustaining life. And of course, the discovery that at least one "big six" component of life can be replaced suggests others may be replaceable as well, further increasing the probability of life outside of Earth. Many believers in alien life have long hypothesized that life on other planets may be based on different chemicals than life on Earth.
Pretty interesting.
I think that if there is life on other planets, they won't be using oxygen and hydrogen like we do and they will need other elements to live on(possibly ones that couldn't co-exist with us).
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