Of Arsenic and Aliens

By Carl Zimmer
Dec 2, 2010 7:00 PMMay 21, 2019 9:42 PM
LakeMono

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Rumors have been swirling this week about a press conference NASA is starting right now. Some people have speculated that they're going to announce evidence for life on another planet.

Well, not quite. Scientists have found a form of life that they claim bends the rules for life as we know it. But they didn't need to go to another planet to find it. They just had to go to California.

The search for alien life has long been plagued by a philosophical question: what is life? Why is this so vexing? Well, let's say that you're hunting for change under your couch so that your four-year-old son can buy an ice cream cone from a truck that's pulled up outside your house. Your son offers to help.

"What is change?" he asks.

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