Partly arsenic-based lifeform discovered.

[Human No More]

THE TRUTH on the Californian NASA POISON ALIENS
BBC News - Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

Very interesting

The discovery of a previously unknown lifeform in California that lives on arsenic is prompting astrobiologists to broaden their hunt for alien life.

The new bacterium - GFAJ-1, part of the class Gammaproteobacteria, which also includes E.coli - was discovered in samples taken from Mono Lake. The lake is naturally high in arsenic because of its location near the volcanic hotspot of Yosemite National Park.

"We not only hypothesized that biochemical systems analogous to those known today could utilize arsenate in the equivalent biological role as phosphate, but also that such organisms could have evolved on the ancient Earth and might persist in unusual environments today," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the lead author of a study appearing in the journal Science Express.

Phosphates are vital to life on Earth, forming the backbone of DNA, for example. Arsenic is so toxic precisely because, being located directly below phosphorus in the periodic table, its chemical behaviour is similar: it is able to disrupt basic processes.

The first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life has been found.

The bacterium, found in a California lake, uses the usually poisonous element arsenic in place of phosphorus.

Until now, the idea has been that life on Earth must be composed of at least the six elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus - no example had ever been found that violates this golden rule of biochemistry.

This... is... epic