NASA's Arsenic Living Organisms: New Discovery?

[iRaid]

I swear I've read about these arsenic living organisms before NASA released this. I don't remember where but I know I read about it. Can someone else say that this was released before so I don't feel weird about it lol.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Previous research done in Mono lake in California, the lake where the NASA team found the arsenic-containing microbes, had identified microbes that can use arsenic as an energy source in photosynthetic reactions. This research was published in 2008, also in the journal Science:

Abstract
Phylogenetic analysis indicates that microbial arsenic metabolism is ancient and probably extends back to the primordial Earth. In microbial biofilms growing on the rock surfaces of anoxic brine pools fed by hot springs containing arsenite and sulfide at high concentrations, we discovered light-dependent oxidation of arsenite [As(III)] to arsenate [As(V)] occurring under anoxic conditions. The communities were composed primarily of Ectothiorhodospira-like purple bacteria or Oscillatoria-like cyanobacteria. A pure culture of a photosynthetic bacterium grew as a photoautotroph when As(III) was used as the sole photosynthetic electron donor. The strain contained genes encoding a putative As(V) reductase but no detectable homologs of the As(III) oxidase genes of aerobic chemolithotrophs, suggesting a reverse functionality for the reductase. Production of As(V) by anoxygenic photosynthesis probably opened niches for primordial Earth's first As(V)-respiring prokaryotes.

Kulp et al. (2008) Arsenic(III) Fuels Anoxygenic Photosynthesis in Hot Spring Biofilms from Mono Lake, California. Science 321: 967. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1160799

The 2010 paper by Wolfe-Simon describes a different microbe that seems to have been able to incorporate arsenic into its biomolecules (DNA, proteins), something that has never been observed before.

 

[iRaid]

I think I read that on some standardized state test...