Non-Metals

[foodchain]

Life on earth and of course evolution can be studied via the chemical composition of organisms. Such is a prominent aspect of various fields such as molecular biology, genetics, and biochemistry. My question I guess is that life seems to be pretty dependent on the non metals group from the periodic table overall. That such elements like oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon play key roles in life being around currently giving the composition of life.

 

Now I know that a possibility of life at one time existing on mars might be around to find at some point. My question I guess is without knowing other or alien forms of life and working with what we have does the fact that life seems dependent on the non metals group for form and function hint on more then just that confidence or does chemistry possibly play as a guide for life?

 

One scenario is that giving the earths environment, such life forms with such chemistry as existing today may have just one out over other forms or possibilities via natural selection, drift or other variables that influence evolution, though I don’t know of any other biochemistries to date with any broad variation save for maybe sea vent communities.

 

So overall to make things short would it be possible, being I don’t know everything thus why I am posting this, that chemistry of life could be used as one of the means for the “blind watch maker” or is such purely something else as to why a large variety of biochemistries don’t exist, as in ones that don’t really on hydrogen, carbon or oxygen at all. Now I am somewhat interested in the idea of directed evolution, such as does giant predators exist in an environment with miniature prey and so on and when does a chromosome form and why more then one and of course a million other questions that are off topic.

 

"Scientists studying the soil beneath a leaking Hanford nuclear waste storage tank have discovered more than 100 species of bacteria living in a toxic, radioactive environment that most would have thought inhospitable to all forms of life.

"Even in some of the most contaminated zones, we found a few living organisms," said Fred Brockman, a microbial ecologist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland. Brockman is presenting the findings today at the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting in New Orleans.

For most living creatures, the nuclear and chemical waste in the underground storage tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the deadliest mixture of toxins and radioactive muck on the planet.

For certain bacteria, however, this toxic goop left over from decades of nuclear weapons production appears to be just a second home.

"Scientifically, it's pretty interesting stuff," said Jim Fredrickson, Brockman's colleague on this project and a fellow microbiologist at the lab. "The material in the tank is self-boiling and quite hot, so it's not just radioactive and harsh chemicals but also in extreme heat."

 

Quoted from http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/175015_bugs26.html

 

Now this could hint at something, though I don’t know exactly what. I doubt for more complex life forms to be able to make this quantum leap but then again I don’t know of any ethical tests for such really.

 

"Chemical evolution has two meanings and uses. The first refers to the theories of evolution of the chemical elements in the universe following the Big Bang and through nucleosynthesis in stars and supernovas.

The second use of chemical evolution or chemosynthesis is as a hypothesis to explain how life might possibly have developed or evolved from non-life (see abiogenesis). Various experiments have been made to show certain aspects of this process, the first ones were done by Stanley L. Miller in the 1950s. For that they are now called Miller experiments. However only very basic organic building blocks were obtained. The challenge is getting complex molecules organized consistently.

The hypothesis is that simple chemical compounds could catalyze the creation of copies of themselves (somewhat similar to the formation of a crystal or polymer) in an environment rich with the necessary building block compounds or elements. As these chemical replicators "reproduce", they can be created with slightly different structures randomly, similar to biological mutations. Eventually these replicators would produce protocells."

 

Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_evolution

 

 

This is from wikipedia and is basically the subject matter I am trying to get at.