It's not an arsenic-based life form
So I'm curious if these cells can survive if reintroduced back in to the wild?<p>"Next, what they did was culture the bacteria in the lab, and artificially jacked up the arsenic concentration, replacing all the phosphate (PO43-) with arsenate (AsO43-). The cells weren't happy, growing at a much slower rate on arsenate than phosphate, but they still lived and they still grew. These are tough critters."<p>That seems to indicate that they wouldn't be able to compete with their cousins outside of a controlled environment.