APOD: Mono Lake: Home to the Strange GFAJ... (2010 Dec 06)

[APOD Robot]

Mono Lake: Home to the Strange Microbe GFAJ 1

Explanation: How strange could alien life be? An indication that the fundamental elements that compose most terrestrial life forms might differ out in the universe was found in unusual Mono Lake in California, USA. Bacteria in Mono's lakebed gives indications that it not only can tolerate a large abundance of normally toxic arsenic, but possibly use arsenic as a replacement for phosphorous, an element needed by every other known Earth-based life form. The result is surprising -- and perhaps controversial -- partly because arsenic-incorporating organic molecules were thought to be much more fragile than phosphorous-incorporating organic molecules. Pictured above is 7.5-km wide Mono Lake as seen from nearby Mount Dana. The inset picture shows GFAJ-1, the unusual bacteria that might be able to survive on another world.

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[bystander]

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22146

[url=http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3698/thriving-on-arsenic][b][i]Thriving on Arsenic[/i][/b][/url]

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[img3="Discovery of "Arsenic-bug" Expands Definition of Life"]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/5034 ... M_LAKE.jpg[/img3]

[skippy]

Yes, what a wonderful scientific endeavor to make strange life forms with the potential to screw us all over--just like germ warfare and the black hole machine

[NormalRay]

I wonder what is the origin of Mono Lake.

[bystander]

Extraordinary claims about arsenic
Discover Blogs | Gene Expression | 05 Dec 2010

Rosie Redfield has a “must read” post, Arsenic-associated bacteria (NASA’s claims). I won’t excerpt it, read the whole thing. To me it is very interesting that many pieces of her critique are ones I’ve encountered in emails or Facebook postings. She stitches them together into a coherent whole. She’ll be writing a letter to Science. Hopefully they’ll publish it. Even if you don’t have a deep background in microbiology and biochemistry I think it was clear that the authors had jumped to some inferences too quickly.

(Acknowledgement, John Hawks)

Update: Also, Arsenate-based DNA: a big idea with big holes:

• So the Sargasso Sea tells us that some bacteria are capable of making DNA at very low phosphate concentrations. The most plausible explanation is that the bacterium GFAJ-1 can make normal DNA at micromolar phosphate concentrations, and that it also has the ability to tolerate very high arsenate concentrations.

This seems like the “boring,” but most plausible, explanation.

Update II: David Dobbs reviews the journalistic response. I think that people who write about science were in a bind because of the structural problems that David points out. When I first skimmed the paper it seemed to claim too much, but I had to keep in mind that it got through peer review. On the other hand as I stated once scientists in a position to critique on a genuinely technical dimension started complaining really loudly on social networking, that changed my own perception really quickly.

Backlash/Feedback on NASA’s Arsenic Findings
Universe Today | Nancy Atkinson | 06 Dec 2010

[bystander]

I wonder what is the origin of Mono Lake.

Mono Lake formed because it lies in the Mono Basin, an endorheic basin that has no outlet to the ocean. Dissolved salts in the runoff thus remain in the lake and raise the water's pH levels and salt concentration. The Mono Lake tributaries include Lee Vining Creek and Rush Creek.

The basin was created by geological forces over the last five million years: Basin and Range crustal stretching and associated volcanism and faulting at the base of the Sierra Nevada. Five million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was an eroded set of rolling hills and Mono Basin and Owens Valley did not yet exist.

[dim12trav]

Now all we need to find is some solar system with just a little phosphorus and lots of Arsenic and there will be these microbes living the high life there. Is there such a place?

[rjgowdie]

I wonder if Mono lake is an ancient crater, and the microbe wasn't a hitchhiker on the meteor.

[judy]

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace way far beyond us. so, bye for now.

[kentmere]

Interesting APOD! Shame about the spelling of the element P. It is phosphorus, not phosphorous. The latter implies a particular state of chemical combination for phosphorus. Why do astronomers have such difficulties with elementary chemistry?

[orin stepanek]

Thanks bystander for showing the photos; really neat.

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=22146

[url=http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3698/thriving-on-arsenic][b][i]Thriving on Arsenic[/i][/b][/url]

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[img3="Discovery of "Arsenic-bug" Expands Definition of Life"]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/5034 ... M_LAKE.jpg[/img3]

[Céline Richard]

I like a lot this APOD , because the Mono Lake shows how life could be in other worlds, far away from the Earth. It testifies to the existence of other life forms, maybe beyond our observable universe.
It is on our planet, but paradoxically, it have the impression it makes us traveling more far away, towards unknown places.

Perhaps, sometimes... one of the aims of Astronomy is less to escape from our planet, from our world, from what we know, in order to find new things, than to better understand our Universe, including our little planet
We understand us a little more, if we know ADN with arsenic can exist, instead of with... phosphorous (phosphorus, phosphore ).
In biology, we understand us better, if we can compare our ADN to another life form. I mean we needed to find something different, in order to know what is the characteristic of our life form.
We are just one life form, among many others. If i don't make a mistake, we have seen other life form could exist, thanks to the study of the Mono Lake, which deals with at least one other life form, which might survive elsewhere in the Universe, than on Earth.

Please Judy, don't give up on APOD! I have discovered it just a few months ago, but i would like you to keep seeing APOD

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace way far beyond us. so, bye for now.

Actually, the Mono Lake is a breaking news in Astronomy: most of APOD are published in newspapers, which speak about breaking news in Astronomy, while refering to APOD. So I think when APOD publishes an image about a breaking new in Astronomy, those newspapers have the opportunity to show a wonderful picture along with there comments, which is pleasant for the newspapers' readers.
Moreover, many people like APOD, while they don't go in those newspapers: they learn some breaking news in Astronomy thanks to APOD.

Céline

[neufer]

Interesting APOD! Shame about the spelling of the element P. It is phosphorus, not phosphorous. The latter implies a particular state of chemical combination for phosphorus. Why do astronomers have such difficulties with elementary chemistry?

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Phosphorous acid (H₃PO₃) is as an intermediate in the preparation of other phosphorus compounds.
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Hypophosphorous acid (H₃PO₂) is a phosphorus oxoacid and a powerful reducing agent.
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Phosphorus [L., the morning star, Gr. , lit., light bringer; light + to bring.]

1. The morning star; Phosphor.

2. (Chem.) A poisonous nonmetallic element of the nitrogen group, obtained as a white, or yellowish, translucent waxy substance, having a characteristic disagreeable smell. It is very active chemically, must be preserved under water, and unites with oxygen even at ordinary temperatures, giving a faint glow, -- whence its name. It always occurs compined, usually in phosphates, as in the mineral apatite, in bones, etc. It is used in the composition on the tips of friction matches, and for many other purposes. The molecule contains four atoms. Symbol P. Atomic weight 31.0.

3. (Chem.) Hence, any substance which shines in the dark like phosphorus, as certain phosphorescent bodies. Bologna phosphorus (Chem.), sulphide of barium, which shines in the dark after exposure to light; -- so called because this property was discovered by a resident of Bologna. The term is sometimes applied to other compounds having similar properties. -- Metallic phosphorus (Chem.), an allotropic modification of phosphorus, obtained as a gray metallic crystalline substance, having very inert chemical properties. It is obtained by heating ordinary phosphorus in a closed vessel at a high temperature.
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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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<<Phosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with "forbidden" energy state transitions in quantum mechanics. As these transitions occur less often in certain materials, absorbed radiation may be re-emitted at a lower intensity for up to several hours.>>

[Beyond]

Hey neufer, your phosphorus U-tube video seems to have been disabled by request. So everyone will have to go to U-Tube and search for it.

[lenka]

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace way far beyond us. so, bye for now.

I think Earth is the most beautiful object in the Universe and we cant discover outer space without knowing our own place. It amazes me every day There are 5651 pictures in the archive today and I want to spend the time watching them all. Iam still in 1995

Thanks!

[orin stepanek]

Hey neufer, your phosphorus U-tube video seems to have been disabled by request. So everyone will have to go to U-Tube and search for it.

if you click on the start arrow; there is a disabled by request note and a watch on YouTube. Just click on the (watch on YouTube) link and you should be able to get it.

[owlice]

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace way far beyond us. so, bye for now.

Did you check out the recent submissions here on Asterisk? There are lots of those to look at. Sometimes there are even polls so you can vote for your favorite.

Oh, and there are lots of HiRISE images, too. Oh, and Spitzer pictures. And Hubble shots. And... well, you get the idea!

If it weren't for APOD, Asterisk wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't have all those fabulous images to see on one place. So...no need to give up on APOD; there's plenty here to look at, and tomorrow is another day.

[Chris Peterson]

Interesting APOD! Shame about the spelling of the element P. It is phosphorus, not phosphorous. The latter implies a particular state of chemical combination for phosphorus. Why do astronomers have such difficulties with elementary chemistry?

I don't think that most astronomers have serious difficulties with elementary chemistry. But astronomers are not chemists, so it is easy enough to see how a simple spelling error like this might go unnoticed (that is, this is NOT a chemistry error, except by accident).

[Chris Peterson]

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace way far beyond us. so, bye for now. :|

Seriously, I don't understand this sort of disgruntlement. The picture changes every day, and checking it takes, what, 30 seconds? Everybody's tastes are different; some images are going to knock your socks off, some you might not like. And of course, it will be different for everyone.

It isn't like you're paying for membership here!

[neufer]

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace way far beyond us. so, bye for now.

Did you check out the recent submissions here on Asterisk? There are lots of those to look at. Sometimes there are even polls so you can vote for your favorite.

Oh, and there are lots of HiRISE images, too. Oh, and Spitzer pictures. And Hubble shots. And... well, you get the idea!

If it weren't for APOD, Asterisk wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't have all those fabulous images to see on one place. So...no need to give up on APOD; there's plenty here to look at, and tomorrow is another day.

Fiddledee dee!

[owlice]

As God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again!

[Chris Peterson]

I wonder if Mono lake is an ancient crater, and the microbe wasn't a hitchhiker on the meteor.

Mono Lake is not a meteor crater.

More to the point, and pretty much overlooked in all this, is that this microbe is not naturally occurring, but was adapted in the laboratory. It is not even certain that arsenic is replacing phosphorus in the DNA backbone (although the inference is a reasonable one), and in any case we are only talking about a subtle modification of a lifeform that is evolutionarily related to all the other lifeforms ever discovered on Earth.

[Beyond]

Hey neufer, your phosphorus U-tube video seems to have been disabled by request. So everyone will have to go to U-Tube and search for it.

if you click on the start arrow; there is a disabled by request note and a watch on YouTube. Just click on the (watch on YouTube) link and you should be able to get it.

Nope! Even if i press Ctrl to disable pop-up blocker, it still doesn't work.

[ScrappyLaptop]

Yes, but...

(adjusts tin foil hat to the correct angle to better answer the Kenneth question)

...the big media stir was a *wonderful* distraction. Pretty much no one except the LA Times reported on the *other* thing that NASA had a (tiny) press release for that day. You know the one concerning boring accounting and budget stuff, which included mention that they may be planning on dropping the Astronaut corps (all 64 of them) from the payroll next year. They'll hang on to enough to get through the last few shuttle flights, including backups, but after that the astronauts "have no defined role in NASA's mission".

With NASA's budget under pressure and the space shuttle program set to retire, even the agency's most sacred cow — the 64-member astronaut corps — isn't safe from the possibility of cuts.

At the behest of the White House, the nation's top science advisors this month began a 10-month study of the appropriate "role and size" of the astronaut corps after the final shuttle mission next year.

From http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 0486.story

Also interesting:

The National Academies investigators have been asked specifically to examine the T-38 fleet. More generally, they also will look into the role and size of the astronaut corps and the facilities used to support them.

The supersonic jets have been used by NASA for decades to prepare astronauts for the rigors of spaceflight. But such training may no longer be needed; NASA wants to launch future astronauts on capsules, which, unlike the winged shuttle, can't be flown once they begin reentry.

The article goes on to talk about how the primary purpose of the astronaut corps in the future may well be...PR. From another source:

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

...I'd say that the person complaining about APOD being more focused on Earth than the crystal spheres might be noticing the trickle down results of a slight change in bias and leadership direction within the agency. Still, the least they could do is keep feeding us 20-year old Hubble pics. Can't get enough of those DSO's, personally and it looks like the replacement has slipped it's budget again.

[Flick]

I think it important to remind us here that, except for the coordinated action of a dedicated group of whacko tree-huggers, this discovery (or controversy -- whichever) may not have been possible. Save Mono Lake!