Excuse me, sir, but there’s arsenic in my DNA!

Mono Lake, where the arsenic bacteria was discovered

Yes, the big NASA press conference was not about aliens, but instead about a very peculiar type of bacteria.

The discovery is being published in this week’s issue of Science, entitled ‘A Bacterium That Can Grow Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus’ and has already been written about by pretty much every science blogger out there.

So rather than bore you with my own re-hash of all the other posts I’ve read on this subject, I will direct you to the best one I’ve read so far. It is by Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Enjoy!

Mono Lake bacteria build their DNA using arsenic (and no, this isn’t about aliens) by Ed Yong.