I was browsing through the wiki on Organic Chemistry when the following caught my attention.
Almost all? There are terran life forms that are not based on organic compounds? All I get when I google this are hits on hypothetical life on other worlds. Could someone elucidate for this science dummy?
All life forms are carbon based, some processes within carbon based organisms may be based on inorganic compounds. “Bioinorganic chemistry” deals with such things as the role of metal cofactors in biocatalysts and the processes leading to the mineralization of bone, teeth and the silicate skeletons of diatoms.
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In the meantime, the passage you quoted mentions life processes not life forms. Photosynthesis is a life process. I imagine the article refers to something similar that doesn’t involve organic compunds. Perhaps some form of ossification, or shell formation?
Aren’t there some sulphur based life forms/processes?
What about the iron-eating bacteria that are consuming the RMS Titanic?
Nope. That a carbon based algae that just happens to have the name “sulfur bacteria.”
To kayaker and ralph124c:
Those organisms are carbon-based, like everybody else, but get their energy from chemical reactions of sulfur and iron respectively. Calling them anything but carbon-based is like calling green plants “light-based” forms.
Right. All organisms, all life forms, are carbon-based, without exception. The wiki article refers to life processes that are not carbon-based, and while I personally don’t know to what they’re referring, I don’t have a hard time accepting that it’s probably correct. Inorganic compounds are an important component of life.
They oxidize metallic iron to get energy, just like we oxidize carbohydrates. But both us and the bacteria are made out of protein, lipids, and DNA/RNA, all carbon compounds.