FOR SCIENCE: New Organism Found That Lives Without Oxygen. Could Aliens Be Next?

[Razor]

Meet a unnamed species of the phylum Loricifera.

Not very cool looking, right? Actually, it's rather lame looking. We could totally kill that thing with like, half a milligram of Cyanide. Kill that fucker dead.

However, this thing is rather awesome. It lives without oxygen.

WHAT?!?!

There are multiple single-celled organisms that can live without oxygen. They do so regularly in such hostile environments as hot springs and volcanoes. Eukaryotes have evolved to a point where they've stayed relatively the same over the past 1,000,000 years or so. Why? What else do you need to evolve for after you can live in a fucking volcano? And without oxygen?

However, there has never before been a multi-cellular organism found on Earth (or anywhere else) that can live without oxygen for an extended period of time. Ever. Anything on this Earth that claims more than one cell has to use oxygen. It just has to.

That all changed with the above Pink Menace.

Okay. I've calmed down. Why is it such a big deal?

When looking at other planets for life, it's always been assumed that the species there would have to live off of oxygen. That's part of why water is the first thing we look for. Water = Two Hydrogen particles and one Oxygen particle. Oxygen that was previously thought as necessary for life to even exist above a archaic, single-celled level.

Well, not any more.

This discovery, quite simply, forces scientists to rethink how life on other planets can form.

Now when we look at Jupiter, the lack of breathable oxygen can't be seen as a deterrent to life. Mercury? Sure it is really close to the Sun. Sure the atmosphere, and most probably all water/oxygen has been baked from every heat-cracked surface. But now that we know multi-cellular organism don't absolutely need oxygen, what does it matter?

The Question

The idea of life on other planets has always been touchy. Both sides have tried to throw everything from statistics (misapplied in almost all cases, honestly) to religion at the issue.

The question, as asked, is thus: Do you think life on other planets is a possibility? If not, does this new discovery of life without oxygen bend you closer to believing?

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Stake your claim.

 

[Rhonda Rousey's Sports Bra]

I'm not going to claim to be a scientist or anything like that but with the information you have just provide I can now say that I believe there can be life on other planets. There can be is the real key though, just because this little pink beauty doesn't survive on oxygen doesn't mean that it didn't evolve from a life of needing oxygen. So this leaves me still a bit skeptic on the possibility of living creatures on our neighboring planets. This is big news though and shows that it is infact possible for something to survive in even the most extreme conditions, my question is can it evolve into a more complex being? If so, how far can it go, and is this little guy a one of a kind species. All things that are very interesting to find out in the future.

 

[Xemmy]

Do you think life on other planets is a possibility? If not, does this new discovery of life without oxygen bend you closer to believing?

Ofcourse it's a possiblity. Even in our own solar system, there are a couple of Jupiters moons that could likely sustain single celled life. As a matter of fact, Europa has oceans under it's surface due to tidal heating from Jupiter. We've seen evidence of water flowing on Mars within the last 5 years.

Now, we don't think life actually exists on Europa, but it's very likely that it could sustain it if the life were there.

The universe has more stars than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches. Probabability is high that there are several Earth like planets out there. We've already found a few that could quite possibly hold life. They're just horrendously far away. I'm afraid the human species may be gone before we ever make contact with any kind of life outside our solar system though, unless we build some thing that can bypass light speed with some wormhole sciencefiction bullshit.

This new discovery just proves one thing. Life can exist in many forms, many of which we are unlikely to know about, because we can only make contact with it on one planet. If there is another intelligent species out there in the far reaches of space, for all we know, they could have evolved to breathe methane.

Thank you for bringing this new discovery to the forum. I wasn't aware of it.

 

[kissfan85]

There is life on other planets, there always were

Extraterrestrials are out there, we can only see such a small part of the universe, anyone who really thinks that out of the billions of planets that we are the only life is extremely naive.
How do you know extraterrestrials even need oxygen?
Or there aren't other planets that oxygen isn't the primary thing living things need.
How do you know that other living planets don't defy everything we need for what we know our life needs to exist...

The universe is endless....have an endless imagination thinking about what is out there

 

[Dressler]

I always believed there could/is life on other planets. I mean when you really stop to think about it, the world is, galaxy upon galaxy upon galaxy of millions of planets and someone can really tell me we, people who voted George W. Bush Jr to the Whitehouse... TWICE, who are destroying are planet ever not so slowly, are the only living things (including Animals) in the whole world? Yeah, doesn't make sense.

Now this discovery is huge, the fact we have found multi-cellular beings that can live off oxygen is huge, I imagine the scientist that found this creature/cell/whatever it is marked the fuck out when he discovered it, because, simply put, its amazing. It makes the idea of living things on other planets 100x more realistic, no longer do we have to be 100% concerned that there has to be oxygen. It opens the door to think a whole bunch more planets could and might hold life on them.

Simply put, its a great discovery.

 

[goodlay]

Damn cool discovery to say the least. Im not a big science guy or anything, but I've always felt like life on other planets is a possibility and most likely exists. To think that we are the only planet or star out of god knows how many in the universe that can sustain and have life, that's pretty damn ignorant.

Now there probably aren't big headed aliens flying around in UFO's and planning to come to Earth to kill us all. But I definitely feel like there is life out there, even if it's just a planet of those little pink phylum whatever dudes.

 

[Remix]

When looking at other planets for life, it's always been assumed that the species there would have to live off of oxygen. That's part of why water is the first thing we look for. Water = Two Hydrogen particles and one Oxygen particle. Oxygen that was previously thought as necessary for life to even exist above a archaic, single-celled level.

Razor, buddy Water is stil required. Even anaerobic organisms need water and are mostly made up of it. Hell Oxygen is only needed for life because it makes respiration so much more efficient. That is the only reason. I can explain this more, but it's not entirely relavent.

Well, not any more.

This discovery, quite simply, forces scientists to rethink how life on other planets can form.

Not really. Water is essential for life as we know it for the same reason that it makes up ~70% of our bodies. And that's not because we breathe Oxygen.

Now when we look at Jupiter, the lack of breathable oxygen can't be seen as a deterrent to life.

Yes it can. And also because it's made of fucking hydrogen. YOu know what else is essential to life? Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen (not just because we breathe it) none of which is on Jupiter.

Mercury? Sure it is really close to the Sun. Sure the atmosphere, and most probably all water/oxygen has been baked from every heat-cracked surface. But now that we know multi-cellular organism don't absolutely need oxygen, what does it matter?

Atmospheric Oxygen isn't essential to life, water is.

The idea of life on other planets has always been touchy. Both sides have tried to throw everything from statistics (misapplied in almost all cases, honestly) to religion at the issue.

Well depending on who's using the stats, they will be wrongly applied.

The question, as asked, is thus: Do you think life on other planets is a possibility? If not, does this new discovery of life without oxygen bend you closer to believing?

It is a possibility because of the sheer size of the universe. So many galaxies made up of so many stars each with their own solar system. We've also found many planets which could potentially posess life.