From Carl Zimmer at Discover Magazine’s “The Loom” blog, we learn, “Last year arsenic-based life, now chlorine-based life” (12011/07/06)
I checked in with Steven Benner, a chemist who has raised a lot of concerns about the arsenic-life research last year. What did he think of the new research?“It looks true,” he said.
Benner also pointed out that using chlorine in DNA is a pretty modest changed compared to what would have been required to substitute arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of DNA. Swapping in chlorine doesn’t change how the compound reacts with other compounds, doesn’t
change its size much, doesn’t change its stability much, and so on.On the other hand, it appears to have the advantage of being real.
That’s something, to be sure. Currently, fanzines are arguing as to whether it should be called”chlorine-based” life, anyway. Informative comment thread shows chlorine phenomenon well-known and used for practical purposes in the past.
File under: High hopes, alongside Arsenic-driven origin of life takes hit” and “This guy knows exactly what happened in the history of life on Earth”
Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista