Can life exist without water?
I am not a biologist, but my impression is that the only kind of life we have ever seen has been based on water. We do not know what other kinds of life are possible. Even exotic anaerobic bacteria contain water, even though their respiration process has nothing to do with the oxygen cycle. Biologists now speak of ‘Xerophiles’ which need little water to survive. For example in a review article by Dave Roberts (Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, London): The driest regions can support eukaryotic life, for instance in the lichens which grow on stones, or even in the Negev Desert (Palmer & Friedmann, 1990). However, the ability to grow in conditions out of liquid water seems to be restricted in the microbes to the fungi. It is an everyday observation in food spoilage that the first colonisers are normally fungi, especially of foods with reduced water activity as a means of preservation (jams, marmalades and similar conserves). The fungi are also able to utilise the filamen
