Earth's Bacteria in the Guise of Extraterrestrial Life

Abstract

On the Internet, December 2, 2010: “NASA: Arsenic-eating bacteria suggests extraterrestrial life possible. … how a bacterium takes a startling detour from normal metabolism, swapping the common element phosphorus for toxic arsenic, and flourishes … research findings prove that ‘shadow’ creatures live in extreme environments previously thought uninhabitable.” December 14: “What happens when bad science meets mass media agenda? You find out that aliens have arrived and you never even knew it.” The foregoing are parts of an unprecedented deluge of messages placed on the Internet during the first two weeks of December, 2010. A blog posted on 12/2 by krieger@mercurynews.com contains all the keywords and ideas vigorously promoted for the past 15 years by NASA's Astrobiology Institute and its grantees on “extraterrestrial microbial life.” On December 2, NASA held a dramatic, one could say sensational, press conference during which the lead investigator of a paper to be published in Science claimed that she and her team had isolated a bacterium in which the phosphorus of DNA and various metabolites is replaced by arsenic. Aside from the implausibility of the claim made by Felisa Wolfe-Simon et al., numerous weaknesses in the experimental observations were quickly posted by Prof. R. Redfield of the University of British Columbia. Her comments are summarized in a lengthy article by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times of December 14, 2010: “Poisoned Debate Encircles a Microbe Study's Result.”