source: National Geographic - Daily News
A scanning electron micrograph of the arsenic-based bacteria. Image courtesy Science/AAAS
A new species of bacteria found in California's arsenic-rich Mono Lake, (a volcanic valley southeast of Yosemite National Park), is the first-known life-form that uses arsenic to make its DNA and proteins.
While arsenic is toxic to most known organisms, the bacteria not only tolerates high concentrations of the element, it actually incorporates it into its cells.
Dubbed the GFAJ-1 strain, the bacteria can substitute arsenic for phosphorus, one of the six main "building blocks" for most known life. The other key ingredients for life are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur.
While Earth remains the only planet known to contain life, the discovery of these extremophiles holds implications for the search for life elsewhere in the universe, since it shows that organisms can exist in chemical environments biologists once wouldn't have imagined.
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