It is not necessary to go to space to encounter bizarre alien life-forms. There are many strange creatures living right here on Earth.

Many of them are in places where you would never except to find anything alive.

As we already know extremophiles are organisms that live in "extreme" environments.

Certain discoveries have led scientists to believe that exposure to uranium can result in the creation of an entirely new very bizarre species.

In other words, our nuclear waste and radioactive environments can give birth to a new type of extremophiles, and in some cases even Frankenstein-style mutations.

I have an interest in this article beyond the obvious, I raised a baby Rock Dove and done a lot of reading about them in the process. On one of my searches to find out what kind she/he was I came across an article about the coloring of them and how it happens. In this article I found that melanin production is some how not produced for the feathers that are white.

Read here:  http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/Albinism_Leuc...

excert:

Albinism is a genetic mutation that prevents the production of melanin in the body. Leucism is a genetic mutation that prevents melanin from being deposited normally on feathers. Since the white patches on birds have no melanin, birds with these patches have been said to have partial or imperfect albinism.
	Leucistic pale Northern Mockingbird by Clayton Gascoigne, Hendersonville, Tennessee
More recently, however, scientists are clarifying the definitions and pointing out that since birds with white patches do have melanin in the body, they cannot be albinistic.

I found the following article to be very interesting also in the information provided.

http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/6/Suppl_2/S203.full

So not only can melanin cause a feather to be white it can also cause the iridescence in the feathers, by the amount that is allowed to be produced. 

Now in this article I find that these extremophiles have an abundance of melanin and can withstand radiation at a level that would kill many, many other lifeforms. 

There seems to me to be a very important connection to this substance called melanin.

Is there anyone out there more informed on this? I would like very much to have your opinion.