IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology
Scientists say NASA’s 2010 ‘new form of life’ claim was untrue
• http://www.rawstory.com, By Agence France-PresseTwo scientific papers appear to have disproved a controversial claim made by NASA-funded scientists in 2010 that a new form of bacterial life had been discovered that could thrive on arsenic.
“Contrary to an original report, the new research clearly shows that the bacterium, GFAJ-1, cannot substitute arsenic for phosphorus to survive,” said a statement by the US journal Science, a prestigious, peer-reviewed magazine.
Science published the much-hyped initial study in December 2010, with lead researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon, then a fellow in NASA’s astrobiology program, announcing that a new form of life had been scooped from a California lake.
The bacterium in arsenic-rich Mono Lake was said to redefine the building blocks of life, surviving and growing by swapping phosphorus for arsenic in its DNA and cell membranes.
