@ DoshyII: "If you know anything about alternate types of life that may exist on other planets..."

Where would one obtain such knowledge?

Nice try alien life form. You'll never get our secrets.

I think there was once an episode of Stargate SG-1 with a sulfur-based life form. You could always check that out.

People talk a lot about silicon-based forms, obviously, and NASA embarrassed itself quite a bit with a big press conference about it a few years ago, if memory serves.

Watch Evolution
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251075/

Funniest line (while he was doing the X-Files):
Ira Kane (David Duchovny): No! No government. I know those people. Absolutely not.

@OutsideSmoker- you just made my night thanks for remembering stargate. Best documentary show ever

@semck83: in what way did they embarrass themselves?

I think mostly by overhyping it beforehand, steephie, and by giving a press conference where a press release might have served.

As I say, though, the details are hazy, and I may not even be right about what exactly it was. A search just now suggested it was about a microbe that could eat arsenic, or something. Anyway, I remember some derision at the time about the ratio of the news conference's buildup versus the delivery.

It's so embarrassing that you can't even remember what was embarrassing?

Pretty much. I mean, certainly it wasn't the type of embarrassment where people were questioning the mission of NASA, arguing for its funding to be cut, or losing fundamental confidence in it. It was a "you just wasted all our time and energy for a week with a dumb decision" kind of embarrassment.

Here's are examples covering the story.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-over-hyped-nasas-findings-can-be-2012-11

http://io9.com/5708505/was-the-arsenic-life-form-announcement-just-a-nasa-publicity-stunt

http://xkcd.com/829/

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/a-conference-on-hype-in-science/

I read some articles which said that liquid ammonia could be a substitute for water. What does everyone else think?

Not sure if trolling or....

Isn't ammonia liquid by definition?

And yeah, 'liquid' ammonia is a fine substitute for water..
When drowning someone.

Ammonia is a solid, anhydrous ammonia. What you see sold as a cleaner is ammonia in water. Urea is two ammonia molecules bound together and is what you smell in urine.

I googled it and it's a language thing. In Dutch, Ammonia is the gas that we call ammoniak (NH3) in water.
So I wasn't wrong, it's just not the case in English :-)

If ammonia was a 'base' (like water is for us), then it would mean, for ammonia-based life forms, water would be acidic. Although ammonia - based life is, speculation, it still is something to think about. The same can be said about methane-based life (for example, methanogens that could exist, consuming acetylene, ethane and hydrogen, and releases methane instead of C02) that hypothetically could exist on Titan.

Why would water neccessarily be acidic to ammonia-based life forms?

I'm genuinely curious how you draw that conclusion with such certainty.

I took this idea from this site - it says that:

"Biochemistry based on ammonia will likewise be more base in nature, and thus water would function like an acid."

This isn't definitely correct, but maybe it is.
(Here's the site:)

http://arcana.wikidot.com/ammonia-as-biological-solvent