Thursday, December 2, 2010

Well, ain't that a kick in the arsenic.

The most important news and commentary to read right now. - The Slatest - Slate Magazine:
'It's not that.' But this morning, Gizmodo blogger Jesus Diaz threw more coal on the fire, boldly claiming to have the inside scoop. 'At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today,' Diaz writes, citing a Dutch media outlet. Found in California's toxic Mono Lake, the bacteria is reportedly made of arsenic—not phosphorous—meaning that it 'doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth,' he adds.
The announcement isn't until 2:00 PM. If this turns out to be it, I'll need come more convincing that the bacteria from the toxic lake isn't just heretofore unknown terrestrial life. Is it possible that the very toxicity of the lake is why it's different than what we've found before? Is it possible that arsenic-based bacteria could have evolved here under the specific conditions in which it was found? 
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...