Life is tough; living with arsenic. The bush of life (Introduction)

by David Turell @, Friday, December 03, 2010, 17:51 (5081 days ago)
edited by unknown, Friday, December 03, 2010, 18:16

I brought up the new discovery of a bacterium that can use arsenic instead of phosphorous, when forced to, about 13 hours ago, with several readers thereof, but no comments. The press is filled with this and a bunch of conjectures re' extraterrestrial life, alien life, etc. Here are several takes on this:-http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-sara-seager-discovery-life.html-http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19805-arseniceating-bacteria-point-to-new-life-forms.html-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101202140622.htm-The first site is the most definitive in philosophic take. This is an adaptation of a living organism that is forced to use arsenic, the element most closely related to phosphorous. Arsenic is tiny amounts is found in many living organisms. This bacteria prefers phosphorous, but can use arsenic. All this means is life is tough and living forms can make necessary adaptations to continue living.-None of this means there is extraterresterial life, or alien life, or that it uses arsenic. All it means is life can adapt to extreme pressures for survival. The other thought is bacteria are single-celled. They adapt better than multicelluar organisms. That is why they have been around for over 3.6 billion years. We humans are too complex to adapt ourselves to swimming in Mono Lake, a stinking supersaturated cesspool of water. I've been there. Google it and take a look. Extremophiles are everywhere that the environment for life is extreme.-This is the key 'dodo' point I was making. Evolution naturally results in branching as different adaptations are tried out against natural selection. Because life is so tough, those branches can go on seemingly forever, and seemingly with no purpose till they die out usually by accident. That is why evolution is a giant bush, not a tree. View evolution as the 'bush of life'.

Life is tough; living with arsenic. The bush of life

by dhw, Saturday, December 04, 2010, 13:01 (5080 days ago) @ David Turell

David has drawn our attention to a bacterium that can use arsenic instead of phosphorus.-Apologies for not commenting earlier, but there are so many threads going at the moment that it's very difficult to keep up. This particular discovery raises exactly the same questions as a bug which I think was discovered last year, but I can't find the reference. It too lived in "impossible" conditions (was it found in a volcano?) and the experts said that it could survive space travel, which gave rise to exactly the same speculations.-I remember making the comment then that if these superbugs could survive any conditions, and the driving force behind evolution was survival, what need was there for evolution? -You say: "Evolution naturally results in branching as different adaptations are tried out against natural selection" and we should view it as a bush and not a tree. There is no disagreement between us over the shape. The disagreement is over the heavenly planning department.

Life is tough; living with arsenic. The bush of life

by Balance_Maintained @, U.S.A., Sunday, December 05, 2010, 04:21 (5080 days ago) @ dhw

There is an algae that eats carbon monoxide(a normally lethal gas), and produces O2. No there is a bush that eats arsenic, and (I am assuming) produces O2. Why is it strange to think that things like these are in fact purpose driven life forms. They fill a very basic, yet subtle need, removing toxins from our environment. I would actually be quite interested in knowing more on the early plant life. I have a sneaking suspicion that if we were able to examine what chemicals they absorbed, we would find others that absorbed nominally toxic gases or chemicals and produced oxygen or nitrogen as a byproduct, along with CO2 as they decayed after death.

Life is tough; living with arsenic. The bush of life

by David Turell @, Tuesday, December 07, 2010, 18:37 (5077 days ago) @ David Turell


> This is the key 'dodo' point I was making. Evolution naturally results in branching as different adaptations are tried out against natural selection. Because life is so tough, those branches can go on seemingly forever, and seemingly with no purpose till they die out usually by accident. That is why evolution is a giant bush, not a tree. View evolution as the 'bush of life'.-Further discussion on arsenic bacteria. Way overhyped as I have suggested:-http://blog.the-scientist.com/2010/12/07/heavy-metal/

Life is tough; living with arsenic. The bush of life

by David Turell @, Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 15:06 (5076 days ago) @ David Turell


> Further discussion on arsenic bacteria. Way overhyped as I have suggested:
> 
> http://blog.the-scientist.com/2010/12/07/heavy-metal/-Another scathing review of the arcenic bacteria article:-http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/pagenum/2

Life is tough; living with arsenic. The bush of life

by David Turell @, Sunday, April 24, 2011, 18:52 (4939 days ago) @ David Turell

The following book has more criticism of arsenic life, but it also covers other extremophiles and discusses research into many strange froms lilving under very different environments than on the surface of the Earth:- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704495004576264902966836830.html?KEYWORDS...

Life is tough; arsenic life is really dead

by David Turell @, Wednesday, June 06, 2012, 15:51 (4530 days ago) @ David Turell

The following book has more criticism of arsenic life, but it also covers other extremophiles and discusses research into many strange froms lilving under very different environments than on the surface of the Earth:
> 
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704495004576264902966836830.html?KEYWORDS... article. No such thing as arsenic life:-http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2012/06/its-finally-official-arsenic-life-does.html

arsenic life?

by David Turell @, Monday, July 09, 2012, 15:12 (4497 days ago) @ David Turell

Emphatically NO:-http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/journal-retreats-from-controversial-arsenic-paper/2012/07/08/gJQAFQb7WW_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines-But the explanation of the mixup lies in the relation of phosphorus and arsenic. They are close chemically, but only phosphous is used for energy as ATP, adenosine tri-phosphate, the main energy source in life. How did phosphorous get added to orginal life? No one knows. Inorganic phosphorus is difficult to get at.-"Contemporary organisms use, almost
exclusively, orthophosphate derivatives (PO4
3-) in their cell biochemistry,1 yet thorny questions remain as to how Nature
was able to accumulate, activate and exploit the
orthophosphate group from geological sources with both
poorly solubility and low chemical activity"-http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/abscicon2010/pdf/5264.pdf-Further explanation:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100525094906.htm

arsenic life?

by David Turell @, Thursday, October 04, 2012, 15:56 (4410 days ago) @ David Turell

Finally explained. Extremophile bacteria in Mono Lake are able to use phosphates and are not killed by the arsenic.-http://phys.org/news/2012-10-bacterium-mono-lake-survive-high.html

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