Astonomy Cast "Exotic Life"

This podcast was created shortly after NASA's finding of arsenic making bacteria. This bacteria was found in California. The lake that the bacteria was found in, was highly polluted with arsenic. This is the reason why the bacteria and is believed to be able to replace phosphorus with arsenic in making and replicating DNA. People were getting excited that arsenic life forms might be out in space. The reason why the switch from phosphorus to arsenic was possible, is because both elements have 5 valence electrons. This means that there is still 3 space for other electrons, and thus a great window of bonding opportunities. The main part of the bacterium is still made out of carbon. There still has been no find of life without the use of Carbon. Other places in the solar system have been searched for other life. Titans, one of the moons of Saturn, has an abundance of methane. The temperature on Titan is at methane's triple point, or the temperature in which all three states of Methane can exist at the same time. In my opinion, there is a possibility that life might exist elsewhere in the universe. The finding of arsenic to me is only a matter of the pollution that happened in the lake. Pollution can cause life to behave in crazy ways and mutate, which is what happened. NASA should not have made the giant claim about this huge new finding.