There's relatively little information out there right now. I'm a bit skeptical of the findings until I see something published in a reputable journal. It's not unusual to find bacteria (Archaea) living in some pretty atrocious environments.
JLS On Dec 3, 2010, at 3:16 PM, John Sessoms wrote: > From: Jeffery Smith > >> Strange finding. They discovered a bacterium that uses arsenic in place of >> phosphorus in its DNA. That is somewhat earth-shaking in the biology field, >> as no other organism on earth has been able to substitute other elements in >> DNA. >> >> Jeffery >> >> >> On Nov 30, 2010, at 3:46 PM, Brian Walters wrote: >> >>> > >>> > http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-167_Astrobiology.html > > Heard that on NPR this morning. > > Did they sequence the DNA and actually identify arsenic in the locales where > phosphorus should be? > > The story on the radio said some scientists criticize the findings because > they did not completely eliminate all phosphorus from the sample and cannot > positively say whether the bacterium uses arsenic in place of phosphorus or > is just highly adapted to the high level of arsenic found in its "natural" > environment. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
