Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

Junglekeeper · Dec 2, 2010

Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life.

The bacterium, found in a California lake, uses the usually poisonous element arsenic in place of phosphorus.

Until now, the idea has been that life on Earth must be composed of at least the six elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus - no example had ever been found that violates this golden rule of biochemistry.
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Junglekeeper · Dec 8, 2010

NASA study dismissed as poor research.

A University of B.C. microbiologist has taken aim at NASA and the journal Science in a scathing critique of an arsenic microbe study that grabbed headlines last week.

In a blog post that is getting plenty of international traction, UBC's Rosie Redfield describes the study as "lots of flim-flam, but very little reliable information."
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Junglekeeper · Jul 9, 2012

Arsenic-loving bacterium needs phosphorus after all

Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada,...is now a co-author of one of two papers that confirm that, although the bacteria can tolerate arsenic, they do depend on phosphorus. The papers were published by Science on 8 July.

The story of GFAJ-1 is far from over, she adds. "The key questions are: how do these cells thrive in lethal concentrations of arsenic? And where does the arsenic go?"
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Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

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Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

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