Life Abhors Arsenic, Even In Extremis
Sunrise on an Otherworldly Lake Sunrise at Mono Lake in eastern California, bounded to the west by the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This ancient alkaline lake is known for unusual tufa formations rising from the water's surface, as well as for its hypersalinity and high concentrations of arsenic. via Science/© 2010 Henry BortmanAnother study casts doubt on the famous arsenic-life findings, showing the bacterium actually grabs phosphorus wherever it can be found. An exquisitely detailed chemical structure enables microbes to selectively choose beneficial phosphorus over its poisonous cousin, arsenic, even when the dangerous chemical far outweighs the essential one. A unique method of chemical bonding helps the bacteria's phosphate-binding proteins sniff out phosphorus, according to researchers in Israel, France and Switzerland. It's yet another in a string of papers responding to a claim that bacteria could subsist on arsenic. In late 2010, NASA announced that a newly studied strain of bacteria...