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Silicon Based Lifeform


Ryusei the Morning Star

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http://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-living-cells-have-formed-carbon-silicon-bonds

 

Scientists have managed to coax living cells into making carbon-silicon bonds, demonstrating for the first time that nature can incorporate silicon - one of the most abundant elements on Earth - into the building blocks of life.

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Oh cool.

 

Silicon behaves a lot like carbon, which is why "silicon-based life" is so abundant in science fiction. This doesn't really affirm it to be perfectly honest, since silicon-based life wouldn't be working on a traditionally organic template like what is found in this experiment. That said, it has interesting implications with extremophilic organisms and may even have applications in GMO.

 

This discovery isn't terribly pertinent to the concept of silicon-based life, but is still a pretty funking big deal for organic chemistry. 

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