Arsenic microbe study spurs scientific debate

[n2doc]

A young researcher in NASA's astrobiology program set off an international controversy last year when she reported that strange microbes in the muddy brine of Mono Lake were thriving and reproducing on arsenic - a toxic element deadly to every other life form known on Earth.

If Felisa Wolfe-Simon, 33, was right, and the genes of the microbes are really based on arsenic in their DNA and their cells, it would overturn a century of human insights into the very nature of life on Earth, and would revolutionize the way humans look at the possibility of all life everywhere.

The element phosphorous is crucial to the genes in every known life form - from bacteria to humans - but Wolfe-Simon contends that in the Mono Lake microbes she found, the phosphorous had been replaced by arsenic, contrary to everything science knows about life.

Her report was published in December in the eminent journal Science, and it set off an immediate flurry of blogs and e-mails around the world. Twitter messages went viral and for months the journal was bombarded with scores of scientific criticisms.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/28/BA011JMGBK.DTL