NASA發現新微生物 地球有外星生命?

NASA has discovered alien life – but it is right here on Earth. The announcement, at a press conference at the space agency’s US headquarters, follows days of frenetic speculation that it was about to reveal the existence of life on another planet.

美國宇航局（NASA）近日通過發佈會對外宣稱，科學家在地球上發現“外星生物”，這種新微生物的發現爲人類在宇宙其他星球尋找生命帶來了新的希望。

While the truth – an ‘alien’ bacterium lurking deep within a Californian lake – is rather closer to home, it markedly raises the odds of ET’s existence. The excitement lies in the bug’s ability to eat and thrive on arsenic, one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet. It can even incorporate arsenic into its DNA, making it part of its very being.

據悉，NASA天體生物學家從加利福尼亞州莫納湖湖底收集了一些微生物，這種微生物可不是普通的微生物，它可以像其他生物一樣利用磷完成生命功能，但如果需要，它能用砷替代磷，並且依靠劇毒的砷進行新陳代謝。這一科學史上的重大突破讓人類在尋找外星人ET的道路上更進一步。

All 'known' life requires six fundamental elements - carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulphur - which provide the building materials for DNA, proteins and fats. As every other form of known life uses phosphorus rather than arsenic as a key building block of its DNA, the find suggests that a second form of life is with us, right here one Earth.

衆所周知，地球上的生命是由六大元素組成，它們分別爲：碳、氫、氮、氧、磷和硫，這六大元素組成了生物體內主要的有機化合物，如蛋白質、核酸等。原本，這六種生命元素被視作無可替代，但最新的研究發現證實，這種新發現的微生物能將劇毒元素“砷”代替“磷”，並完成自身的新陳代謝活動，而砷的氧化物形式就是人們熟知的毒藥砒霜。