A new life form has been identified from Mono Lake in California that is capable of using arsenic, an element outside the magic six for sustenance and growth!
Everyone has been waiting impatiently for the NASA announcement across the planet. It is not extraterrestrial life ..... but a bacterium living in a California lake (Mono Lake) full of arsenic. There is no outlet for this lake and thus the water escapes only by evaporation. It is not only highly alkaline but also rich in carbonates, phosphorus, arsenic and sulfur. An apt cauldron for cooking up some life! You know how cells need phosphorus to do bits of odd job like building the DNA strand and holding up the two strands as they do the dance of life together? Well it turns out these bugs are using a form of arsenic instead! This bug, identified as strain GFAJ-1 is using an element (arsenic) outside the magic six CHNOPS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur) in its basic building blocks and can use it for growth. It is an amazing story and should be followed by all lovers of life.
I can feel the excitement amongst biochemists and biologists and all scientists for that matter since our understanding of the origin is so crucial to our understanding of life.
Amidst all the muck of reductions in deficits and increase in fraud I am holding out for this bug that is living on the edge!!!
Read more : http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nasa-finds-arsenic-life-form/
The original article is published in Science and out today!!
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Kevin Army
L in the Southeast
dianaani
bbd
Nabina
ronnierayjenkins
Salon.com
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Zumapick and liked.
Meanwhile, the fundies are building a Noah's Ark amusement park called, "Noah's Park." They have dinosaurs mingling with people for the bible propaganda value. Now the life on Earth/Universe discussion just got a whole lot bigger. I am loving this.
I am lifting the abstract straight from Wolfe-Simon's paper in Science which has been cited above . It is so simple that it can really be taught to any kid
A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus.
Abstract:
Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Although these six elements make up nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids and thus the bulk of living matter, it is theoretically possible that some other elements in the periodic table could serve the same functions. Here, we describe a bacterium, strain GFAJ-1 of the Halomonadaceae, isolated from Mono Lake, California, which substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth. Our data show evidence for arsenate in macromolecules that normally contain phosphate, most notably nucleic acids and proteins. Exchange of one of the major bioelements may have profound evolutionary and geochemical significance.
To set out the authors' introduction simply:
There are a selected number of elements other than the magic six that serve critical cellular functions. There are many cases of trace elements substituting for one another in the workings inside the cell. These trace elements share chemical similarities that facilitate the exchange. However there are no previous reports of substitutions for any of the six major elements essential for life.
In this paper Wolfe-Simon et al have presented evidence that arsenic can substitute for phosphorus in bio molecules of naturally occurring bacterium.
and now it is the stuff of life???
Thanks for the visit DL and TT69
It is important to remember that it is not that the bugs cannot use phosphorous. They actually grow and divide very well with phosphorous and are not really arsenic based life form. However, the fact that one of the magic six elements can be replaced by a very plausible alternative is a first find.
Arsenic (As) is a chemical analog of phosphorus (P),
which lies directly below P on the periodic table.