View the article from Wired.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Arsenic: Poison or Building Block for Life?
This is kinda old news, but still rather interesting. It is well known to
biologists, and the scientific community as a whole, that the
elements that form the basic building blocks for life are carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur (or CHNOPS),
without these life couldn't, or wouldn't exist on Earth. It is also
common knowledge that arsenic is toxic. However, this common
knowledge is being challenged by research done by NASA and led by Dr.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon. The research has shown that certain microbes,
whom normally sustain themselves on phosphorous and being deprived of
it, can switch to sustaining on arsenic. This find alters what we
know about life on Earth, and opens the door to ideas on how life can
survive in environments unlike what we have here on earth.
View the article from Wired.
View the article from Wired.
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It would seem as though this research is being heavily challenged by the scientific community. Attempts to recreate the results of the original experiments have so far been unsuccessful. Despite these major setbacks, Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her team stand by their research.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livescience.com/14362-arsenic-life-controversy-critics-science.html