To read news article click on "A Microbe Thrives on Arsenic" above. Find quotes below.
Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist at Columbia University who was not part of the research, said he was amazed. “It’s like if you or I morphed into fully functioning cyborgs after being thrown into a room of electronic scrap with nothing to eat,” he said.
next quote:
The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.
Scientists said the results, if confirmed, would expand the notion of what life could be and where it could be. “There is basic mystery, when you look at life,” said Dimitar Sasselov, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of an institute on the origins of life there, who was not involved in the work. “Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.”
Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA astrobiology fellow at the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., who led the experiment, said, “This is a microbe that has solved the problem of how to live in a different way.”
This story is not about Mono Lake or arsenic, she said, but about “cracking open the door and finding that what we think are fixed constants of life are not.”
Dr. Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues publish their findings Friday in Science. end quote.
As an intuitive and avid science fiction reader since I was about 9 years old, I long ago came to the conclusion that humans have always adapted to whatever climate or planet that we have ever lived upon. And I think Earth is no exception to this quality in galaxy roving humanoids. So I expect when we as Earth based humanoids meet our ancestors and relatives on potentially thousands of other planets
it should come as no surprise that some of them might have gone through similar adaptations to these arsenic eating microbes from Mono Lake, California.
Also, as a boy during the 1950s I swam in Mono Lake with my family and it was then known as the saltiest lake on earth many times more salty than the oceans. So the microbes that still live there have a completely different environment than anywhere else on earth. So, maybe it isn't surprising that these microbes, if they could adapt to that environment might be able to adapt to other extreme environments as well. Also, microbes living near oceanic or fresh water boiling vents likely would have very unusual characteristics as well that would completely differ from the rest on earth that are used to living in more "normal" (at least for us) nature environments.
When one swam in the lake in the 1950s it was so brackish that one sort of laid upon the water because "Floating" was not the same thing as it was elsewhere. I remember laughing that when I was on my back I was so far up out of the water. The only problem was that the salts stuck to one's skin and then hardened after one got out of the water and formed a crust on our skin and were uncomfortable then and there weren't any fresh water showers there until we reached our next motel or campground 50 to 100s of miles away.
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Phosphorus is one of six chemical elements that have long been thought to be essential for all Life As We Know It. The others are carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and sulfur. end quote.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8174040/Life-as-we-dont-know-it-discovery-could-prove-existence-of-aliens.html
The following article can be located at the above internet address.
'Life as we don't know it' discovery could prove existence of aliens
NASA has sent the internet into a frenzy after it announced an "astrobiology finding" that could suggest alien life exists – even on earth.
The bacteria has been found at the bottom of Mono Lake in California's Yosemite National Park which is rich in arsenic - usually poisonous to life Photo: CORBIS
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The discovery could prove the theory of "shadow" creatures which exist in tandem with our own and in hostile environments previously thought uninhabitable.
The "life as we don't know it" could even survive on hostile planets and develop into intelligent creatures such as humans if and when conditions improve.
In a press conference scheduled for tomorrow evening, researchers will unveil the discovery of a microbe that can live in an environment previously thought too poisonous for any life-form to survive.
http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/mono-lake-from-hippie-bumper-sticker-to-nasa-superstar/19742120
Below article can be found at the above address.
AOL News Surge Desk(Dec. 2) -- "Save Mono Lake!" It's a bumper sticker that has long been a fixture on VW buses across the state of California for decades. Now, with NASA's announcement of the discovery of bacteria that thrive on poisonous arsenic, Mono Lake is back in the national spotlight.
Located in Mono County, Calif., 13 miles east of Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake's history is of interest to tourists, conservationists and, now astrobiologists. Surge Desk has a primer on Mono Lake's story to date.
Formation of Mono Lake
Located more than 6,000 feet above sea level, geologists believe Mono Lake formed 760,000 years ago during a volcanic eruption in California's Long Valley that was 2,500 times more powerful than the 1980 blast at Mount St. Helens, The Mono Lake Committee said on its website. The massive crater left by the eruption slowly began to fill with precipitation, snow melt-off and water from nearby tributaries.
1941
During the last ice age, the lake reached a depth estimated at 900 feet. While that level represented the peak depth, the most notable changes in Mono Lake's size came in 1941, when the city of Los Angeles diverted several of the lake's tributaries to provide humans with a much-needed water source. The lake's average depth today is just 57 feet.
The lake's odd geologic formations
Exposed when the waters of Mono Lake began to fall, enormous limestone structures called tufa were exposed. These odd, almost alien-looking towers form near the mouths of springs as calcium meets carbonate.
1978
Appalled by the state of the rapidly disappearing lake, David Gaines formed the Mono Lake Committee to raise awareness and try to protect the ecosystem.
Current chemistry
With no tributaries now carrying fresh water into the lake, the level of salinity at Mono Lake has risen to a level of 8.1 percent, with a pH of 9.8.
2010
NASA gives Mono Lake renewed attention, announcing that new life forms have been discovered on the lake's muddy banks.
http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/mono-lake-from-hippie-bumper-sticker-to-nasa-superstar/19742120
Below article can be found at the above address.
Mono Lake: From Hippie Bumper Sticker to NASA Superstar
Updated: 19 minutes ago
AOL News Surge Desk
Located in Mono County, Calif., 13 miles east of Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake's history is of interest to tourists, conservationists and, now astrobiologists. Surge Desk has a primer on Mono Lake's story to date.
Formation of Mono Lake
Located more than 6,000 feet above sea level, geologists believe Mono Lake formed 760,000 years ago during a volcanic eruption in California's Long Valley that was 2,500 times more powerful than the 1980 blast at Mount St. Helens, The Mono Lake Committee said on its website. The massive crater left by the eruption slowly began to fill with precipitation, snow melt-off and water from nearby tributaries.
1941
During the last ice age, the lake reached a depth estimated at 900 feet. While that level represented the peak depth, the most notable changes in Mono Lake's size came in 1941, when the city of Los Angeles diverted several of the lake's tributaries to provide humans with a much-needed water source. The lake's average depth today is just 57 feet.
The lake's odd geologic formations
Exposed when the waters of Mono Lake began to fall, enormous limestone structures called tufa were exposed. These odd, almost alien-looking towers form near the mouths of springs as calcium meets carbonate.
1978
Appalled by the state of the rapidly disappearing lake, David Gaines formed the Mono Lake Committee to raise awareness and try to protect the ecosystem.
Current chemistry
With no tributaries now carrying fresh water into the lake, the level of salinity at Mono Lake has risen to a level of 8.1 percent, with a pH of 9.8.
2010
NASA gives Mono Lake renewed attention, announcing that new life forms have been discovered on the lake's muddy banks.
Henry Bortman
Astrobiology researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon works with samples at California's Mono Lake. end photo quote.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon is the researcher above who discovered this microbe. This photo and accompanying article can be found at:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/02/5567143-et-life-the-truth-will-be-out-there
Felisa Wolfe-Simon is the researcher above who discovered this microbe. This photo and accompanying article can be found at:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/02/5567143-et-life-the-truth-will-be-out-there