NASA's New Life
On December 2nd, NASA held a press conference to reveal a major new discovery from their research in astrobiology.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon's team discovered a microbe in California's Mono Lake that substituted an essential building block of life, phosphorous, with a toxic arsenic. Though there is a small amount of phosphorous within the microbe cells, the amount is "just too little," as Wolfe-Simon adamantly expressed, and the normal cell continued to grow and live with arsenic as its foundation for life.
What they have discovered is a completely different branch of life--one that shatters the perception of what is commonly perceived as the fundamental materials for organic lifeforms, creating a new expanse where further research (both on and off of Planet Earth) can begin in entirely unfathomed environments.
It is unsure how exactly arsenic is being substituted, but the implications are staggering. Most exciting are the new innovations this can bring to the sphere of bio-energy. As James Elser of ASU discussed during the live release, a microorganism that doesn't need phosphorous to live will not exhaust the fertilizing nutrients that become a large cost-effective roadblock in our search for alternative fuels in a fast depleting bio-sphere.
Furthermore the ability to live without phosphorous, swapped with a toxic chemical can point in a new direction for dealing with toxic waste. And more importantly, since this microbe is metabolically the same as other life forms, it can be used to enhance, or work with current phosphorous based life, while at the same time be immune to invading bacteria and infection that could nullify the bio-organism's effectiveness because of its absence of phosphorous.
Dr. Wolfe-Simon is expected an additional paper adding to this groundbreaking research in February 2011.
"Mono Lake, CA, USA" by TerData on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons LicensingTweet