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[Virex]

I don't know if that'll work. You might end up with a molecule that tends to revert into gaseous nitrogen (with predictably hilarious results), as that tends to happen when you put a lot of nitrogen atoms close to each other. Also, coercing nitrate to even form dimers is quite difficult, while phosphate will happily polymerize up into the thousands of units, meaning that chaining 3 of them together is easy as pie.

[Criptfeind]

Oh.

That makes me sad.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Yeah. Nitrogen has this pesky urge to become nitrogen gas. When it does, bad things happen:

An early favorite has appeared in my “most alarming chemical papers” file for this year. Thomas Klapoetke and Joerg Stierstorfer from Munich have published one with a simple title that might not sound unusual to people outside the field, but has made every chemist I’ve shown it to point like a bird dog: “The CN7 Anion”. The reason that one gets our attention is that compounds with lots of nitrogens in them – more specifically, compounds with a high percentage of nitrogen by weight – are a spirited bunch. They hear the distant call of the wild, and they know that with just one leap of the fence they can fly free as molecules of nitrogen gas. And that’s never an orderly process. If my presumably distant cousin Nick Lowe does indeed love the sound of breaking glass, then these are his kinds of compounds. A more accurate song title for these latest creations would be “I Love the Sound Of Shrapnel Bouncing Off My Welder’s Mask”, but that sort of breaks up the rhythm.

From here.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As I recall, Nitrogen bonds are also a key component to explosives, but I don't know enough about biochemestry to know if this means exploding bacteria.

[Virex]

I don't think exploding bacteria would evolve pretty well
Anyway, changing Bacteria so they nitrate glycerin would be interesting...


This reminds me of something else that has to do with swapping out one element for another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium#Effect_on_the_human_body
Basically, the human body will happily use strontium instead of calcium to grow new bone tissue. I don't think anyone has ever tried to find out if it also makes a difference to the nerve system (nerves use calcium as part of the signal transmission process)

[Sowelu]

Strontium man, strontium man
Strontium man hates calcium man
They have a fight
Strontium wins
Strontium man

[Leonon]

Guys, I just realized something. These bacteria are teeny-tiny pirates!

Arrrrsenic

[Javarock]

Guys, I just realized something. These bacteria are teeny-tiny pirates!

Arrrrsenic

^This

[Ø]

Saw a few articles saying it was a second Abiogenesis, but that's really REALLY unlikely. If it were second abiogenesis, THEN I'd be extremely excited, but Occam's razor says constant arsenic exposure led to this.

I can imagine a romance novel of forbidden love between an arsenic based woman and phosphate based man. Shortest Romeo and Juliet ever.

[smjjames]

Mars would have had lifeforms similar to earth's based on its composition.

There is a hypothesis that Mars lifeforms (if they ever existed, we haven't found them yet and haven't been able to look in every possible place. Rovers can only dig so deep) have peroxide based chemistry. They could still be carbon based, its the chemistry that was hypothesized to be based on peroxides or something.

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

Mars would have had lifeforms similar to earth's based on its composition.

There is a hypothesis that Mars lifeforms (if they ever existed, we haven't found them yet and haven't been able to look in every possible place. Rovers can only dig so deep) have peroxide based chemistry. They could still be carbon based, its the chemistry that was hypothesized to be based on peroxides or something.

Wow, i need ot find that article. Peroxide is a powerfull oxydant, and really oxydation is normally one of the worst enemy of new life.

[smjjames]

Mars would have had lifeforms similar to earth's based on its composition.

There is a hypothesis that Mars lifeforms (if they ever existed, we haven't found them yet and haven't been able to look in every possible place. Rovers can only dig so deep) have peroxide based chemistry. They could still be carbon based, its the chemistry that was hypothesized to be based on peroxides or something.

Wow, i need ot find that article. Peroxide is a powerfull oxydant, and really oxydation is normally one of the worst enemy of new life.

I don't remember for sure if it was peroxide or something similar, but there was something about life on mars being based on something. I'm trying to find the article as well, but all I'm finding atm is stuff about hydrogen peroxide killing life on the surface of mars.

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

Would make more sense really. Especially since killing bacteria is what's Peroxide normally used for.

[Shinziril]

Found the paper he was referring to.  Here's another one.  It seems that the main use for hydrogen peroxide would be as a combination antifreeze and water absorber.  It IS admitted in the articles that this is basically wild speculation; the main discussion is how to possibly detect the microbes if they are indeed using this (since heating them up would cause the hydrogen peroxide to violently oxidize the rest of their organic molecules). 

[smjjames]

While I wasn't thinking of those articles per se, the peroxide-water thing is what I was referring to.