Furthermore, biologist Rosemary Redfield writes in the new study, no signs of arsenic could be found in GFAJ-1's DNA. The new studies, also published in Science, found that the bacterium did in fact grow in the conditions described in the 2010 study.īut when the amount of phosphorous was reduced even further than in Wolfe-Simon's experiments, GFAJ-1 stalled. Those criticisms were finally given formal voice Sunday in the form of two different studies with very similar results. Soon after the announcement, though, other researchers began saying they were having trouble replicating Wolfe-Simon's results. (Related: "Saturn's Largest Moon Has Ingredients for Life?") The find was exciting to astrobiologists, who'd previously speculated that extraterrestrial life might survive in unexpected places if only such a swap were possible-arsenic and phosphorous being chemically similar. The team concluded that GFAJ-1 must be incorporating arsenic into its DNA in place of phosphorous, which is essential for the DNA of all other known organisms. They later reported in the journal Science that the bacterium thrived in arsenic-rich, phosphorus-poor lab conditions. Researchers led by then NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon had found the organism, dubbed GFAJ-1, in arsenic-rich sediments of California's Mono Lake. And the secret ingredient was arsenic.īut now two new studies seem to have administered a final dose of poison to the already controversial finding. It was hailed in 2010 as the most "alien" life-form yet: bacteria that reportedly, and unprecedentedly, had rewritten the recipe for DNA.
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