Scientists working under a grant from NASA's Astrobiology
Institute report they have found bacteria -- in Mono Lake,
Calif., not in space -- that could be made to live on arsenic.
The organism is called GFAJ-1. The finding is important because
it expands the prevailing view of what it takes for living
things to survive. "Not only did this microbe cope," said Felisa
Wolfe-Simon, a NASA astrobiology research fellow at the U.S.
Geological Survey, "but it grew and thrived. And that was
amazing." Wolfe-Simon led a team that reported its findings
online today in the journal Science, which -- hey, wait a
minute. If they didn't find alien life, why was the blogosphere
so wildly abuzz about it? It all started earlier in the week
with a NASA news release that, constrained by the Thursday
embargo Science routinely imposes on its weekly editions,
included this tantalizing line: "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