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The Felisa Wolfe-Simon / NASA debacle from 2010 was trying to claim that GFAJ was using Arsenic in place of Phosphorus in biomolecules (especially the DNA backb
by gomijacogeo 7y ago
The Felisa Wolfe-Simon / NASA debacle from 2010 was trying to claim that GFAJ was using Arsenic in place of Phosphorus in biomolecules (especially the DNA backbone). This was quickly debunked.
The paper (indirectly) cited here is claiming that some micro-organisms use simple Arsenic-containing ions for electron transport as part of their metabolic cycles. This is a much less outrageous claim and, I think, already documented in high-Arsenic environments. The only big deal here is, I believe, that this is a low-Arsenic environment.
Original paper: http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1818349116 http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1818349116