Is there life besides Carbon Based lifeforms?

Just because we are carbon based we tend to believe that all lifeforms would be the same. It is not just ignorance which makes us assume this, it is also fear of the unknown. After all this is the model of life we know and so this is the one that we search for in the entire universe.

But what if it was not the only model of life? What if there was other life which was not based on evolution coming from water? What if it was based on silicon or some other element? Most scientists who debate the question feel that there is a possible secondary evolution based on ammonia which is not only possible but also probable.

So what would be different in life forms that evolved from ammonia? Well for starters the biochemistry would be different. As would be the chemical building blocks of life. The DNA strand would not be a double helix as the high pH content would split the two strands. So how would they store genetic data? Maybe they would evolve their own systems.

It is all speculative at this stage as far as we are concerned but it is also quite possible that some other form of life exists in the universe and we have passed them by just because we did not recognize them. Here is an interesting science project for you to try out.