Hypothetical types of biochemistry in the late 1960s, these machines are often classed as computers (or computer-guided robots) and filed under "silicon-based life", even though the silicon backing matrix of these processors is not nearly as fundamental to their operation as carbon is for "wet life". Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, while poisonous for most life forms on Earth, is incorporated into the biochemistry of some organisms. Some marine algae incorporate arsenic into complex organic molecules such as arsenosugars and arsenobetaines. Fungi and bacteria can produce volatile methylated arsenic compounds. Arsenate reduction and arsenite oxidation have been observed in microbes ("Chrysiogenes arsenatis").
Cavalier-Smith's system of classification to plants. By 1959, Robert Harding Whittaker (1920–1980) proposed that fungi, which were formerly classified as plants, be given their own kingdom. His four kingdoms of life were: Whittaker subdivided the Protista into two subkingdoms: Bacteria are fundamentally different from the eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi, amebas, protozoa, and chromista). Eukaryotes have cell nuclei, bacteria do not. In 1969, Robert Whittaker elevated the bacteria to the status of kingdom. His new classification system divided the living world into five kingdoms: The kingdom Monera can be divided into two distinct groups: eubacteria and archaebacteria. In 1977 Carl Woese and George E. Fox