NASA发现新微生物 地球有外星生命？

屈联西

2010年12月06日  国际在线

　　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。
　　美国宇航局(NASA)近日通过发布会对外宣称，科学家在地球上发现“外星生物”，这种新微生物的发现为人类在宇宙其他星球寻找生命带来了新的希望。
　　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。
　　据悉，NASA天体生物学家从加利福尼亚州莫纳湖湖底收集了一些微生物，这种微生物可不是普通的微生物，它可以像其他生物一样利用磷完成生命功能，但如果需要，它能用砷替代磷，并且依靠剧毒的砷进行新陈代谢。这一科学史上的重大突破让人类在寻找外星人ET的道路上更进一步。
　　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。
　　众所周知，地球上的生命是由六大元素组成，它们分别为：碳、氢、氮、氧、磷和硫，这六大元素组成了生物体内主要的有机化合物，如蛋白质、核酸等。原本，这六种生命元素被视作无可替代，但最新的研究发现证实，这种新发现的微生物能将剧毒元素“砷”代替“磷”，并完成自身的新陈代谢活动，而砷的氧化物形式就是人们熟知的毒药砒霜。
　　Vocabulary：
　　arsenic n. 砷；[化]砒霜；三氧化二砷
　　bacterium n. 细菌；杆菌属