Is this the lake that provides the clue to extra-terrestrial life?



Incredible microbe found in California lake

Alien life may have been discovered – right here on Earth.

The announcement by NASA follows days of speculation that the space agency was about to reveal the existence of life on another planet.

While the truth – an ‘alien’ bacterium lurking deep within a Californian lake – is closer to home, it raises the odds of ET’s existence.

Find: Scientists have discovered bacteria that live on arsenic in Mono lake near Yosemite National Park in California

The excitement centres on the bug’s ability to thrive on arsenic, one of the most toxic elements on the planet. It can even incorporate arsenic into its DNA, making it part of its very being.

The Extra Terrestrial: Steven Spielberg's famous character may not be the only alien lifeform in California

As every other form of known life uses phosphorus rather than arsenic as a key building block of its DNA, the find suggests that a second form of life is with us.

And if one alien life-form exists, enthusiasts argue, it is highly likely that there are others out there.

Dr Felisa Wolfe-Simon, from Arizona State University, who led the U.S. researchers, said: ‘Our findings are a reminder that life as we know it could be much more flexible than we assume or imagine.

‘If something on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do?’

Astrobiologist Professor Ariel Anbar, who co-authored the study reported today in the journal Science, said: ‘Life as we know it requires particular chemical elements and excludes others. But are those the only options? How different could life be?’

The bacteria, from the GFAJ-1 strain of the Halomonadaceae family, were found at the bottom of the salt and arsenic-ridden Mono Lake, near California’s Yosemite National Park.

They can live like normal life-forms, using phosphorus in their molecules. But when necessary they can switch to a ‘weird’ mode of life that relies on arsenic.

The finding bolsters the ‘weird life’ theory coined by Paul Davies, a British-born professor of cosmology, also at Arizona State University.

Is there life out there? Speculators had hoped that a major announcement about alien life would be made

This advisory, posted on the NASA website, caused a media frenzy

