I’ve discussed extremophiles several times before (1 2 3 4) and noted that some have been found miles beneath the surface of the Earth.
While Futurismic may have jumped the gun on a fake story published by some crafty UFOlogists (someone at Whipnet concocted a purportedly original news story about Thomas Gold, a guy who has been dead for two years), the idea of silicon-based life forms is apparently not a new theoretical field in astrobiology.
Scientific American discussed this issue several years ago as has the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Here’s a concise overview from Wikipedia.