UPDATE2: 12/2/2010 10:15AM PST, NYT reports on this a full hour before the NASA news conference at 2PM EST (11AMPST) that it is in fact about arsenic microbes. – Anthony
UPDATE: It may not be so profound as I conjectured below after all. Our always sharp WUWT readers point me to articles in the Daily Mail (and also Telegraph blogs) which say it is more terrestrial in nature than extraterrestrial.
Nasa scientists are set to announce that bacteria have been discovered that can survive in arsenic, an element previously thought too toxic to support life, it can be revealed.
In a press conference scheduled for tomorrow evening, researchers will unveil the discovery of the incredible microbe – which substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth – in a lake in California.
The remarkable discovery raises the prospect that life could exist on other planets which do not have phosphorus in the atmosphere, which had previously been thought vital for life to begin.
But it seems like old news, as this paper from 2004 talks about microbes using Arsenic in Mono Lake: The microbial arsenic cycle in Mono Lake, California
There is also this earlier story from The Times, from May 2010 asking: Do alien life forms exist in a Californian lake? The scientist, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, quoted in that article, is also on the NASA press panel tomorrow. If they are indeed announcing arsenic microbes in Mono Lake, it sure seems like they waited a long time to do it, and the press release wording invites a lot of speculation.
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From NASA’s press release here there’s been a lot of buzz and speculation around the blogosphere on what may be announced tomorrow.
It may be mundane, such as they’ve found some building block of life in some comet or asteroid sampling mission, or they may have found evidence of life somewhere. I doubt it will be anything higher than microbe level if they do. Still, that would be fantastic news in itself. But after looking at the publications in the CV of one of the participants, James Elser of Arizona State University and his work in desert environments, plus Pam Conrad, co-author of a papers on Death Valley geology and how it pertains to Life signatures on Mars, I’m going to make a SWAG and offer that the press conference may have something to say about discovering the ingredients of and/or byproducts of life on Mars, via some samples from Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. It is one possibility.
The other SWAG possibility I see is some discovery from the Cassini mission and Titan, Saturns’ largest moon, which has a chemical soup “smog”. Earlier this year on June 3rd, NASA made a press release titled:
What is Consuming Hydrogen and Acetylene on Titan?
Here’s the money quote:
“We suggested hydrogen consumption because it’s the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth,” McKay said. “If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth.”
But then there’s this:
“Scientific conservatism suggests that a biological explanation should be the last choice after all non-biological explanations are addressed,” Allen said. “We have a lot of work to do to rule out possible non-biological explanations. It is more likely that a chemical process, without biology, can explain these results – for example, reactions involving mineral catalysts.”
I suppose if deep sea hydrothermal vents can support chemosynthetic bacteria using hydrogen sulfide for food, why not hydrogen and acetylene?
Of the two possibilities I cite, I’m thinking some announcement about Cassini and Titan has a higher probability. Maybe it will be somethings as simple as “we see signs of life on Titan, but we need more money to find out”.
We’ll find out in about 24 hours.
NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2
WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.
The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website at http://www.nasa.gov.
Participants are:
– Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
– Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
– Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
– Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
– James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe
Media representatives may attend the conference or ask questions by phone or from participating NASA locations. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov or call 202-358-0918 by noon Dec. 2.
For NASA TV streaming video and downlink information, visit:
For more information about NASA astrobiology activities, visit:
– end –
HR says:{December 1, 2010 at 2:21 pm}
“WUWT announces aliens living in California!” 😉
We’ve known that since the first time Jerry Brown was elected Governor.
I’m 40+ years from my last chemistry class, but I recall that carbon chem (organic back then) was more complex than all the rest combined. I find it hard to believe you could get the necessary complexity outside of carbon. Which does impose some limits on what is likely. At the microbe level, things are a bit easier, and allow wider variation.
Lots of “coulds”, “mights”, and “possiblys”. But no little green men.
HR says:{December 1, 2010 at 2:21 pm}
“WUWT announces aliens living in California!” 😉
Well they have announced aliens lived in and now buried under the Vatican, they must have been elected as well.
http://conjecturenews.com/aliens.htm
Even in the outlying provinces the speculation is rife.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/has-nasa-found-life-beyond-earth-20101202-18h0w.html
“[To disagree with site policies about UFO’s,” I just wish to understand “why” such site policies without a good reason when the whole purpose of WUWT to exist comes across as finding a way to the truth in science in an open manner, including extraterrestrial science.Just like climate changes,so does our understanding of extraterrestrial life forms.
REPLY: It is for the same reason that we don’t want chemtrails, HARRP, and 9/11 truther discussions here. – Anthony
This is no big deal surprise. I used to work in an office at 8th Avenue and 35th Street in New York. I’ve known for twenty years that there are aliens amongst us and that there truly is life after death.
[snip]
I am not UFO fanatic, but i must say i agree with Barry on this..
I can understand why you dont want this article to be about UFO’s, but what is wrong with a video link?? It is entirely ontopic and makes you look a bit like a hypocrite when you make fun of scientists who claim they know everything. Simple fact is that people see unexplained objects in the sky.
I personally dont think aliens are capable of visiting earth due to such long distances, but there is clearly something very unexplained popping up in our skies that could be anything from aliens, secret projects or even just some atmospheric phenomena.
And isnt this site supposed to cover interesting/odd phenomenas related to weather/atmosphere as well?
Bad Andrew says:
December 1, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I agree with Helen Hawkins again.
“Religious people have considered extraterrestrial life since as far back as the writers of the Bible. It’s scientists who can’t seem to get a handle on it.”
Some have,have a listen to Barbara Joy O’Brien – Co-author of ‘Genius of the Few’
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/videoBJOB.php
Useless factoid: the similarity between phosphates and arsenates was first studied by a chemist called Alexander Borodin, who happens to also be the composer.
SNIP – get it through your head sir, no UFO discussions here. Take it elsewhere or be banned. Final warning. – Anthony
I was hoping for a tardigrade in cometary dust. It can’t be coincidence that the little blighters can take thousands of times more radiation than other lifeforms, liquid nitrogen temperatures, boiling in acid etc.
JF
Considering what life they have found so far on other planets it is going to take a lot of looking. And they are not going to know for sure if they don’t look. It would be good if it does not have a global warming hook.
Over at the Telegraph in the UK, Dr Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist at the Centre for Planetary Sciences in London, is quoted as follows: “If these organisms use arsenic in their metabolism, it demonstrates that there are other forms of life to those we knew of.”
I must say that I adore this scientist’s plain way of speaking. He refers to the new life form as: “other forms of life to those we knew of.” Isn’t this the only reasonable description at this time? How does someone take “other forms of life to those we knew of” and get “alien life form?” Isn’t this just the cheapest kind of hype? Isn’t it exactly analogous to “new more chocolaty Coco-Puffs?” I am so embarrassed for science; that is, for those institutions and people who once practiced science.
One life forms poison is another ones food…
Some 2,500 years ago, Anaxagoras found it quite reasonable to think that life was common throughout the heavens. The much quoted Arrhenius, much more recently, fully agreed. Even more recently, Fred Hoyle, who was no dumbbell at all, became convinced that life on Earth did not originate here at all but arrived in the atmosphere from outside in microorganic form, and he also believed it continues to arrive as we speak.
Intelligence in some form or another is a visible feature of life in all its manifestations. Now, if intelligence emerges from matter, this can only mean it is already present somehow in matter. By whatever means the elementary particles managed to organize themselves into, say, a human brain, or an ant, or an argon atom, it is very odd to think they did it out of the blue. Appealing to “laws” of nature does not help my perplexity. To follow any “laws” you must at least have a sense that laws should be followed. Why should the muon, or the positron, or anything else, follow (and keep on following) the “laws” that apply to their identity? Why indeed? Just think about it.
And specially, why does it come as a surprise that in a world known to consist of an incomprehensibly monstruous number of conglomerations of matter, similar forms of organizations of matter exist as here on Earth? Why?
I don’t understand why it is so “important” that we know if there is life elsewhere. Given the number of different stars, planets and galaxies, I think it is pretty safe to assume that it is a virtual certainty that biological processes have developed elsewhere.
So once you assume there is biology elsewhere, the “importance” of finding it diminishes. Even a religious person wouldn’t find it hard to believe that maybe God had a few spare days to work in some other part of the universe.
We will discover it eventually when we run across it. It probably isn’t worth spending very large sums to look for, particularly in these times. This smacks of someone angling for funding and producing justification for it via media theater.
Ok, so what if we found evidence of green algae on some planet around a star. Now, what do we do with it? Absolutely nothing. It becomes a piece of information that is “nice to know” but does nothing to advance the condition of the human race.
Even if Earth is a one-in-a-billion case, there would be billions of Earths. Maybe even billions of billions. To expect that biological processes exist nowhere else is somewhat naive, in my opinion.
Lets stop wasting money searching for grains of sand at the beach and start spending on something more worthwhile … like maybe a permanent colony off the planet or something.
WAIT A MINUTE!!! The United States EPA has official regulations limiting the amount of Arsenic in water. These Bugs better not be exceeding these limits or they are in BIG trouble.
Barry Day says:
December 1, 2010 at 6:39 pm
“SNIP – get it through your head sir, no UFO discussions here. Take it elsewhere or be banned. Final warning. – Anthony”
” Where was the UFO discussion in the last posts? only >>>evidence of extraterrestrial life<<< that was in my discussion,sir.and that was validifying the evidence by Quotes from Presidents, Astronauts, Senior Military and more
"WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for >>>evidence of extraterrestrial life<<<. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.”
REPLY: One of the links provided earlier was to some nutball in Australia that snapped a photo of a “muscle car UFO”. I’m not having that sort of rubbish here. You then went to “UFO’s” on the sun, which I don’t want either. Be as upset as you wish, but no UFO discussions are wanted here. – Anthony
It is interesting to note that life based on other than carbon chemistry was suggested by Walt Disney in his Mars and Beyond series which aired on TV in 1957. This discovery is not all that original or “unpresidented”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_and_Beyond
Larry
Well, I very much hope its not just arsenic bugs in California lakes. As Anthony notes, that doesn’t appear to be ‘new’ news at all.
They’ve been studying various bugs that use arsenic for some time. They’ve also been found in a number of places around the world including Mono Lake and Searles Lake in the Mohave (which has a far higher arsenic content than Mono does apparently). Apparently since the mid-1990’s over 20 species of what are called dissimilatory arsenate respiring prokaryotes (DARPs) have been discovered. There’s a bit of technical info at: http://microbiology.usgs.gov/geomicrobiology_arsenic.html
Other extremophiles can survive unthinkably, incredibly, high radiation levels, or are sulfur based lifeforms. There are bacteria that live on oil, and others have been found more than a mile deep underground. They’ve even found a bacteria that can survive as a colony naked in space for over 100 days.
Sooooo – unless there’s something really unique about this particular bug, I’ll be rather disappointed if this is just about arsenic lovin’ bacteria…
Life is incredibly inventive and tenacious. Given a little bit of real estate, and life will find a way to exist, survive, and
have puppiesreproduce.I don’t BELIEVE in UFO’s, I know that UFO’s exist because I have seen some myself, that is, unidentifiable flying objects that defy known laws of motion and dynamics. I am not saying that they belong to little green men from Mars or tall grey blokes from alpha centauri or wherever. I just don’t know what these were. It’s just that I have seen, three times, objects that defy known technology and physics. And I was not alone, hence it was either a real thing or a collective mental disturbance of some sort. That said and done.Full stop. But this subject (UFOlogy) does not belong here, so, please all of you here who have nothing to do please go and do your nothing somewhere else.
“It’s life Jim but not as we know it!”
The legume Neptunia amplexicaulis, a native of west Queensland, substitutes selenium for sulphur in some amino acids. It grows. Selenium can reach up to 0.5% of the dry weight of seeds. Poisonous to sheep, though. This was known before 1964.
It was thought that volcanic vents on the oceanic ridge system were lifeless untill someone looked and found scores of new species living in the hot sulphurous water. Yellowstone has some rare algae and bacteria living in the hot springs. If life can start somewhere it will adapt and thrive. Only humans fail at the first change in the weather.