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I am looking forward to hearing about the DNA/RNA mechanism of this organism. If it is totally different from everything else we know as life on this planet, then this story indeed blows my mind.

And if the organism uses relatively standard RNA, it might suggest these critters diverged from other life on earth before DNA was widespread. This could be taken as support for the "RNA World" hypothesis.

What is the source of their information? The article comes off as guesswork, since they provide no qoutes or press releases from NASA.

It’s most likely not a guess, they link this source: http://nos.nl/artikel/202302-nieuw-soort-leven-ontdekt.html (Dutch)

That’s an article on the website of a dutch public broadcaster. The way it’s written, it looks rather like they didn’t respect the embargo, not like speculation. The Guardian [0] also seems to know something: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/02/nasa-life-form...

[0] Others also picked up the story: http://news.google.com/news/story?client=safari&rls=en&#...

I worry that the existance of arsenic in the bacterium may be incidental.

The Nature article is out; they make a compelling argument that it is NOT incidental.

NASA Finds New Life