If you visit the Grand View Library, you will find that we have a great collection of science books. You can learn quite a bit about biology, chemistry, and physics from our collection. Pulling one of the biology books off the shelf, you would be able to learn that all living things on the Earth are composed of six base elements (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus). It has been this way for a long time and is considered one of the backbones of biological history.
Today, that all changed.
Scientists with NASA's Astrobiology Institute announced that through intensive research, they have discovered a new form of life, a microbe, living in a lake in California. The Mono Lake microbe contains five of the six elements, but is missing phosphorus. In its place, scientists discovered that the cells were using arsenic instead.
This is a major announcement and rewrites some of the basic ideas that we have about biology on our planet.
Take a look at some of the information that's been posted about this historic announcement:
"Bacterium Grows with Arsenic"
"Bacteria Use Arsenic As Basic Building Block In A Pinch"
