MicrobeWorld

In the New York Times, Dennis Overbye discusses work just published in Science, conducted by a USGS-Menlo Park team, who trained a gammaproteobacterium taken from sediments in Mono Lake to substitute arsenic almost completely for phosphorus. The results have far-reaching consequences for astrobiology and the search for life outside our solar system, and for that matter hint at the possibility of "weird life" on Earth.