Henry Bortman / 2010 Astrobiology researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon
works with samples at California's Mono Lake. The controversy
over findings that suggest life can grow using arsenic entered a
new phase today: The researchers behind the radical claim issued
a statement responding to their critics — and said the comments
and responses generated by their experiments would be reviewed
and published in a future issue of the journal Science. In their
original study, published online by the journal Science on Dec.
2, the researchers suggested that salt-loving bacteria gathered
from California's Mono Lake could be coaxed to substitute atoms
of arsenic, which is toxic to life on Earth, in place of the
usual phosphorus atoms in DNA and other parts of their cellular
machinery. Since that study was published, a number of
microbiologists and chemists have questioned whether the
experiments actually proved the researchers' point. The critics
said inadequate care was taken in purifying DNA samples from the
bacteria in the ar