Arsenic-based lifeforms found on Earth are unlike any previously observed
(NEWSER) - NASA has discovered a totally new kind of life form, but it’s not an alien—it’s here on Earth. Astrobiologists have found a bacteria living in a poisonous California lake that’s actually partially made of arsenic, it announced in a much-hyped press conference today. Whereas every other organism ever observed is made up of six essential ingredients—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—this one seems to have replaced phosphorus with arsenic, the Washington Post explains. More»
