![]() Just as farmers have long modified crops and livestock by breeding generations of organisms for the traits they want to appear, so too have scientists bred microbes to create the molecules they desire. The researchers steered microbes into creating molecules never before seen in nature through a strategy known as 'directed evolution,' which Arnold pioneered in the early 1990s. "We wanted to see if we could use what biology already does to expand into whole new areas of chemistry that nature has not yet explored," Arnold said. Now, scientists have discovered a way to coax biology to chemically bond carbon and silicon together. These organo-silicon compounds are found in a wide range of products, including pharmaceuticals, sealants, caulks, adhesives, paints, herbicides, fungicides, and computer and television screens. ![]() Still, chemists have artificially synthesized molecules comprised of both silicon and carbon. For example, silicon makes up almost 30 percent of the mass of the Earth's crust and is roughly 150 times more abundant than carbon in the Earth's crust. Moreover, silicon is one of the most common elements in the universe. And instead of relying on carbon to create the molecules of life, perhaps aliens could use silicon.Ĭarbon and silicon are chemically very similar in that silicon atoms can also each form bonds with up to four other atoms simultaneously. For example, instead of relying on water as the solvent in which biological molecules operate, perhaps aliens might depend on ammonia or methane. Still, researchers have long speculated that alien life could have a completely different chemical basis than life on Earth. Related: The Search for Life on Mars in Pictures This quality makes carbon well-suited to form the long chains of molecules that serve as the basis for life as we know it, such as proteins and DNA. Life on Earth is based on carbon, likely because each carbon atom can form bonds with up to four other atoms simultaneously.
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