NASA finds new life

[pete311]

NASA has discovered a new life form—called GFAJ-1—that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth, using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything.

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

[darin]

It's laughable to read "...has evolved to..." the implication is "At some point, this bacteria was not able to survive..." If that's the case, they would have died before magically 'deciding' or 'evolving' to survive.

Honestly can't believe grown-ups buy that; it's akin to believing in Santa.

[pete311]

It's laughable to read "...has evolved to..." the implication is "At some point, this bacteria was not able to survive..." If that's the case, they would have died before magically 'deciding' or 'evolving' to survive.

Honestly can't believe grown-ups buy that; it's akin to believing in Santa.

You're getting hung up on the wrong point. The fact that this bacteria can use arsenic in place of phosphorus is monumental. This has not been seen before and not thought possible.

btw dmp, you really ought to take a biology course because the words you type make you sound so stupidly ignorant. I will not get into an evolution debate here. But this finding is pretty damn cool.

[Noir]

Fantastic news, simply fantastic :)

[darin]

You're getting hung up on the wrong point. The fact that this bacteria can use arsenic in place of phosphorus is monumental. This has not been seen before and not thought possible.

btw dmp, you really ought to take a biology course because the words you type make you sound so stupidly ignorant. I will not get into an evolution debate here. But this finding is pretty damn cool.

And you should take a "Go fuck yourself" class. (shrug).

Enjoy your day.

[Kathianne]

It's simply astounding. Now the question is, is it the only one or just the only one so far discovered?


...NASA is saying that this is "life as we do not know it". The reason is that all life on Earth is made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same. ed. that we've known of until now...

In a surprising discovery, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon and her team have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism—called GFAJ-1 and found in Mono Lake, California—uses the poisonous arsenic for its building blocks....

[fj1200]

Hold on a minute...


Scientists poke holes in NASA’s arsenic-eating microbe discovery

When NASA announced the discovery of an arsenic-eating microbe in a California lake last week, the agency hailed it as a suggestion that life as we know it, well, isn't life as we know it.

"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, said at a news conference.

NASA's team of astrobiologists had taken samples of the bacteria from mineral-dense Lake Mono -- in a volcanic region of Northern California near the Nevada border -- and starved them of phosphate, the meal of choice for most DNA-based organisms. Instead, the scientists force-fed the bacteria a form of arsenic, and, much to the researchers' surprise, the bacteria continued to grow and flourish on their new diet of poison.

But then other scientists began digging into the paper outlining NASA's research and findings, and they're now charging that the research behind it is flawed.

"I was outraged at how bad the science was," University of British Columbia microbiology professor Rosie Redfield told Slate's Carl Zimmer. Redfield also posted a scathing critique of the report on her blog.

Redfield and other detractors point out that when NASA scientists removed the DNA from the bacteria for examination, they didn't take the steps necessary to wash away other types of molecules. That means, according to the critics, that the arsenic may have merely clung to the bacteria's DNA for a ride without becoming truly ingrained into it.

The report's detractors also note that the NASA scientists fed the bacteria salts that contained trace amounts of phosphate, so it's possible that the bacteria were able to survive on those tiny helpings of phosphate instead of the arsenic.

"This paper should not have been published," University of Colorado molecular biology professor Shelley Copley told Slate's Zimmer.

So why would NASA scientists make such a big deal out of a discovery that, according to critics, they must have suspected was questionable?

"I suspect that NASA may be so desperate for a positive story that they didn't look for any serious advice from DNA or even microbiology people," UC-Davis biology professor John Roth told Zimmer.

A NASA spokesperson brushed off the criticism. The paper's authors have not responded to the firestorm. Needless to say, that posture, too, has drawn the ire of critics. "That's kind of sleazy given how they cooperated with all the media hype before the paper was published," Redfield said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101208/sc_yblog_thelookout/scientists-poking-holes-in-nasas-arsenic-eating-microbe-discovery

[Noir]

In the end science will get to the truth of this. It will be very disappointing if NASA of all groups made an announcement before proper peer review, that's not how science works, and if they truly have left out the scientific method needed then whoever was in charge of this was a moron.

[PostmodernProphet]

This changes everything.
??...how so?.....

[Pagan]

In the end science will get to the truth of this. It will be very disappointing if NASA of all groups made an announcement before proper peer review, that's not how science works, and if they truly have left out the scientific method needed then whoever was in charge of this was a moron.

Yep, just like the "Global Warming" ;)