NASA discovers new form of life!

Ricky · Dec 3, 2010

Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...03102_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010120203242

WASHINGTON (Reuters) â€“ A strange, salty lake in California has yielded an equally strange bacterium that thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it, researchers reported on Thursday.

The bacteria do not merely eat arsenic -- they incorporate the toxic element directly into their DNA, the researchers said.

The finding shows just how little scientists know about the variety of life forms on Earth, and may greatly expand where they should be looking for life on other planets and moons, the NASA-funded team said.

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"We have cracked open the door to what is possible for life elsewhere in the universe," Felisa Wolfe-Simon of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and U.S. Geological Survey, who led the study, told a news conference.

The study, published in the journal Science, demonstrates that one of the most notorious poisons on Earth can also be the very stuff of life for some creatures.

Wolfe-Simon and colleagues found the strain of Halomonadaceae in California's Mono Lake, formed in a volcanic region and very dense in minerals, including arsenic.

The lake is teeming with life, but not fish. It also contains the bacteria.

"Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus," the researchers write in Science.

These six elements make up the nucleic acids -- the A, C, T and G of DNA -- as well as proteins and lipids. But there is no reason in theory why other elements should not be used. It is just that science never found anything alive that used them.

The researchers grew microbes from the lake in water loaded with arsenic, and only containing a little bit of phosphorus.

SCIENTISTS AMAZED

The GFAJ-1 strain of the Halomonadaceae grew when arsenic was in the water and when phosphorus was in the water, but not when both were taken away. And it grew even with "double whammy" of arsenic.

"It grew and it thrived and that was amazing. Nothing should have grown," Wolfe-Simon told a news conference.

"We know that some microbes can 'breathe' arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic."

Paul Davies of NASA and Arizona State said the bacterium is not a new life form.

"It can grow with either phosphorous or arsenic. That makes it very peculiar, though it falls short of being some form of truly 'alien' life belonging to a different tree of life with a separate origin," he said.

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But it does suggest that astrobiologists looking for life on other planets do not need to look only for planets with the same balance of elements as Earth has.

"Our findings are a reminder that life-as-we-know-it could be much more flexible than we generally assume or can imagine," said Wolfe-Simon.

"If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet? Now is the time to find out."

James Elser, an expert on phosphorus at Arizona State University, said such bacteria may be useful for generating new biofuels that do not requite phosphate fertilizers, treating wastewater or cleaning up toxic waste sites.
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BEYOND REASON · Dec 3, 2010

I keep seeing this on TV, I wonder where or what this bacteria is from.

Way2Be · Dec 3, 2010

This is utterly creepy. Are we going to be invaded, that is the real question lol

Skaterdude456 · Dec 3, 2010

I keep hearing about this from various places lol.

I feel that people always think that there's more intelligent life somewhere in the universe waiting for the right time to invade us lol. Has anybody thought that were the smartest life form in the universe or that other life forms are not here to invade/know we even exist? Maybe that bacteria has some sort of healing property, just saying =S.

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NASA discovers new form of life!

Ricky Formerly Panic

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