the alien life thing

NASA's Astrobiology Discovery: Arsenic-Eating Bacteria, Not 'Aliens'.
NASA Discovers New Life! Arsenic Bacteria With DNA Completely Alien To What We Know
The Huffington Post | Nicholas Graham
Posted: 12- 2-10 12:48 PM

NASA is holding a press conference today at 2pm to announce a major finding in their research in the field of astrobiology and speculation has reached a fever pitch after the agency said the finding "will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life."

The news has leaked now, and while the discovery is not extraterrestrial life, NASA has indeed uncovered an entirely new life form on our planet that "doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living" on Earth, Gizmodo reports.

Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.
One of the scientists set to speak at the conference today, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, had written a paper "Did Nature also choose arsenic?" earlier this year wondering if that element could also be a foundation for life:

We hypothesize that ancient biochemical systems, analogous to but distinct from those known today, could have utilized arsenate in the equivalent biological role as phosphate.
Organisms utilizing such 'weird life' biochemical pathways may have supported a 'shadow biosphere' at the time of the origin and early evolution of life on Earth or on other planets.

Such organisms may even persist on Earth today, undetected, in unusual niches.


It would seem her theory is correct. In March of this year the London Times had a fascinating report on Wolfe-Simon's research at Lake Mono:

She points out that Mono Lake arsenic life, if found, may only go as far as proving the extreme adaptability of life on Earth billions of years ago. It is generally agreed that on early Earth the chemical soup was very different because of the material being thrown out of the planet's depths by volcanoes and hydrothermal vents and the lack of biologically derived oxygen. If arsenic was around in far greater concentrations then, perhaps "arsenolife", as she calls it, in Mono Lake is evidence of that ancestral life, a finding that would deepen our understanding of how life on Earth got started.
There will be other scientists at the news conference. Jason Kottke gives a rundown on each of them and their expertise here. NASA's press release announcing the news conference is below.

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2
Story continues below
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/nasa-new-life-arsenic-bacteria_n_791094.html

Dang, I was hoping for something like this

Well NASA are over 2 years behind...lol

Arsenic-eating bacteria rewrite evolutionary history

Updated 12:45 15 August 2008 by Nora Schultz

A new kind of photosynthesis that uses arsenic instead of water to harvest light promises to rewrite evolutionary history - at least that of arsenic metabolism on Earth.

Some bacteria use arsenate - arsenic with four oxygen atoms attached - as an energy source. It was thought that this form of metabolism didn't get going until long after photosynthesis filled the atmosphere with oxygen about 2.7 billion years ago. When this happened, naturally occurring arsenite would be transformed into arsenate.

But Ronald Oremland and colleagues at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, were puzzled by the great range of arsenic-eating bacteria. If they evolved recently they must have passed the ability to metabolise arsenic to each other by lateral gene transfer, he says.

Alternatively, arsenic metabolism could have evolved much earlier, giving plenty of time for bacteria to diversify. Newly discovered bacteria from oxygen-free hot springs in Mono Lake, California, support this interpretation.

Toxic lunch

Oremland's team isolated and bred these bacteria in the lab. By growing them with with arsenite as the only possible food source, the researchers showed that the bacteria can indeed thrive.

"It was quite tricky to culture the critters, because if you give them too much arsenic, it's still toxic even to them. But once we had figured out the right dose and gave it to them at regular intervals, they flourished on the stuff," says Oremland.

The results suggest that arsenic photosynthesis evolved at the same time, or even before, "normal" photosynthesis. Oremland says a similar mechanism might once have fuelled life on Mars or on Jupiter's moon Europa.

Jon Lloyd, a geomicrobiologist at the University of Manchester, UK, says it will be interesting to see how widespread arsenic photosynthesis is. He also says that these bacteria might one day help to clean up arsenic-contaminated drinking water, but emphasises that there is a pressing need for detoxifying technologies now.

"There are existing robust approaches that can be implemented more quickly," he says.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1160799

http://current.com/11go84c

Biggles wrote:

why do I get the feeling kermie lamb that their going to be showing stuff like tiny microbes. Will watch sweetie pie. xo

A gold star for you

Reunite wrote:

Dang, I was hoping for something like this

That is a darn good photo kerm.