Arsenic and deep space? NASA scientists Thursday served up a poison-munching microbe as a model for life on alien worlds.Researchers report in the journal Science the discovery of a bacteria in a mud sample from California's salty Mono Lake that is the first-known organism to use arsenic in its basic metabolism and genes.
The finding would add deadly arsenic to the six basic elements believed needed for life — carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus. The six elements are such a fundamental tenet of biochemistry that finding a critter living on arsenic was a big surprise.
Researchers in Mono Lake, California, have discovered a microorganism (pictured) that uses aresnic instead of phosphorous to thrive and reproduce. The latter, as far as terrestrial life is concerned, is a buildng block of life along with carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, all integral to our DNA and RNA. Arsenic, meanwhile, is generally considered poisonous -- but "chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate," apparently making for a good substitution. In other words, NASA's proven that life can be made with components different than our current assumptions, both locally and beyond the stars. Seems entirely logical, if you ask us.
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