http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-167_Astrobiology.html

http://www.educatedearth.net

Video: (56m 53s) : copy from www.educatedearth.net

NASA’s astrobiology research team reported  on 2 Dec 2010 GFAJ-1 of the Gammaproteobacteria group has the ability to substitute arsenic (33) instead of Phosphorus (15 ) in the molecules of its cells, including DNA and ATP.

A team of researchers has found a microbe that can survive without phosphorus in its DNA make-up. Instead, the little dudes rely on highly toxic arsenic, which makes the microbes the only living thing on Earth that doesn't use phosphorus - previously believed to be one of the six essential building blocks of life, along with carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur.

"All life we know is the same biochemically, and this is a little different. It is suggesting there is another way to be alive."

These microbes don't rely on ATP either, which most high schoolers can tell you is essential for cell division and many other mandatory processes in any given cell. Basically, no life form we've been aware of on this pale blue dot has been without ATP or phosphorus, until now.

So why is this even relevant? Because it proves that planets don't need water and and carbon to sustain life. This is an expansion of the definition of life -- and that means textbooks will need to be rewritten, and these findings may have an impact on bioenergy research, as well as toxic waste management, two areas discussed at the press conference.

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http://en.wikipedia.org

Arsenic reported substituting for phosphorus as a building block of life

A NASA-funded astrobiology research team reported on December 2, 2010 that the microbe strain GFAJ-1 of the Gammaproteobacteria (designated Halomonadaceae) group has the ability to substitute arsenic for at least part of the phosphorus in the molecules of its cells, including DNA and ATP. The finding has critics, however, who have asked for proof that the arsenic-containing biomolecules are functional within the organism, as would be necessary if arsenic truly substitutes for phosphorus in this organism in a mechanistic way.

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