New Type of Bacterium Expands Possibilities of Life, Scientists Indicate

Leading up to NASA's 2 December news briefing about a new astrobiology finding, segments of the blogosphere had run wild with speculation that the agency would announce that it has found life elsewhere. Although some bloggers and readers may have been disappointed in the actual announcement, scientists at the briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the finding of a bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus is “phenomenal,” with broad implications for searching for life on Earth and elsewhere and for other areas of research on Earth. Felisa Wolfe‐Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., led a team that discovered and experimented on the microbe, known as strain GFAJ‐1 of the common bacteria group Gammaproteobacteria. Noting that life is mostly composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus, she said, “If there is an organism on Earth doing something different, we've cracked open the door to what is possible for life elsewhere.”