I’ve shared you all on a Google Doc we’ll use to keep ourselves organized in the planning for this monumental task, but here’s the page if you just want to follow along…

GriffinCam Into Space

Can we do it?

Yes, we can.

Life, as we thought of it, requires six elements… nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, carbon, hydrogen and phosphorous. Except we now realize phosphorous can be substituted with arsenic.

If you check out the periodic table, you’ll see that the elements phosphorous and arsenic are in the same family/group.

This is just amazing news…

All life on Earth – from microbes to elephants and us – is based on a single genetic model that requires the element phosphorus as one of its six essential components.

But now researchers have uncovered a bacterium that has five of those essential elements but has, in effect, replaced phosphorus with its look-alike but toxic cousin arsenic.

Washington Post: Second Genesis on Earth?

You can watch part of the NASA announcement video here.

And yes… this will be a TYPE 1 EXAM QUESTION on your exam

He gave me a collection of Minnesota agates to bring home for our own SDS rock collection!

While we don’t do a great deal with Earth Science or geology in our 8th grade Physical Science class, we do talk about pressure, fluids, gases and heat…all things that led to these rocks being created over a billion years ago when this area of Minnesota was a lava field. Cool, huh?