- #36
Borek
Mentor
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I guess the best way of describing the case is that they found something interesting, but it is probably not quite what they seem to be suggesting it is.
Gold Barz said:So did this turn out to be legit?
Greg Bernhardt said:Here is another source that is skeptical
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101208/sc_yblog_thelookout/scientists-poking-holes-in-nasas-arsenic-eating-microbe-discovery
"Redfield and other detractors point out that when NASA scientists removed the DNA from the bacteria for examination, they didn't take the steps necessary to wash away other types of molecules. That means, according to the critics, that the arsenic may have merely clung to the bacteria's DNA for a ride without becoming truly ingrained into it.
The report's detractors also note that the NASA scientists fed the bacteria salts that contained trace amounts of phosphate, so it's possible that the bacteria were able to survive on those tiny helpings of phosphate instead of the arsenic."
Did you not read the post directly above yours? Here it is again (key points bolded):Murdstone said:Arsenic used as a replacement for phosphorus...
Article does open up the possibility of life much different than on Earth, elsewhere. Not to suggest that because of this life does exist off planet, but if it does it can be more unusual than anticipated.
Ygggdrasil said:Update: Rosie Redfield, a professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia and outspoken critic of the arsenic life paper, claims she has performed experiments to refute the main conclusion of Wolfe-Simon et al.'s paper. She has posted a non-peer-reviewed preprint of her manuscript on Arxiv.
In the manuscript, Redfield and co-workers detail experiments attempting to replicate growth of samples of the GFAJ-1 bacterium and, contrary to what was reported in the original paper, do not find that the bacterium displays arsenic-dependent growth. The authors also set out to test one of the boldest claims of the Wolfe-Simon paper: that the bacterium incorporates arsenic into its DNA. The authors employ a more rigorous DNA purification procedure than Wolfe-Simon et al. (they add a CsCl density centrifugation step), then digest the DNA for LC-MS analysis to look for evidence of arsenic. They find no evidence of arsenic incorporation into the DNA. Furthermore, their results suggest that the purification methods used in the Wolfe-Simon paper leave traces of free arsenic associated with the DNA, but this free arsenic is removed with more extensive washing and purification. This result suggest that the apparent incorporation of arsenic into DNA seen by Wolfe-Simon et al. was merely free arsenic that was incompletely purified from the DNA.
For more, you can read the following news articles from Science and Chemical and Engineering News or follow the story on Redfield's blog:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/closely-watched-study-fails-to.html
http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/01/Arsenic-Based-Life-Aftermath.html
http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/search/label/#arseniclife