In other news, ctd.

Turns out the NASA news conference was more exciting than previously imagined. It's the top science news on the BBC and NYT:

The first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life has been found.

The Coles notes: there are six elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus) that all life forms we know use to build DNA and other components of cells. Until now, that is. If supported by future research, this result shows us that life may be able to substitute arsenic for phosphorus as a building block in certain environments.

Why could this be important? Well, it's evidence that life can exist in more than one form, and can possibly reside in a wider range of environments than we thought possible -- and while this is a far jump from evidence that life has had more than one genesis, it's going in that direction. And that is cool, because if life has been sparked more than once, chances are it has been sparked many times all over the universe. This result is a little glimmer to say "we're [one step closer to saying that we're probably] not alone."

The tone at the scientific press conference is pretty excited.