Extremophiles: Noxious & Loving It
At the beginning of December, a highly compelling rumor was orbiting the biosphere: NASA had finally discovered verifiable alien life.
Where exactly? That part was unclear. Some said our moon, others pointed to one of Jupiter’s. Perhaps it was lurking in some yet-unnamed neighboring galaxy. The embargo on the academic paper only fueled the hype.
But when the lunar dust settled, it turned out to be nothing more than another strand of unsubstantiated viral gossip—or, as we used to say in the good old days before the interweb, bullshit.
The truth was a little less extraterrestrial but no less fascinating. NASA-funded researchers were hard at work at Mono Lake, California, successfully experimenting with a new breed of microorganism—a bacterium—that can survive entirely on arsenic.
Yes, arsenic.
You thought those freaky chemosynthesis-dependent tubeworms living 5,000 feet underwater next to volcanic thermal vents were tough? Meet GFAJ-1.
This little microbial badass wouldn’t just outlive a tubeworm—it would crush its soul.
GFAJ-1 doesn’t just tolerate poison; it incorporates it into its very being and thrives.
“The discovery will require some textbooks to be rewritten,” said one scientist who’s read enough textbooks to know.
I pulled out one from 1988 that confidently states there are six fundamental elements making up the key components of all cellular life (i.e., DNA): carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus.
Phosphorus is particularly essential. No living thing can exist without it… until now.
Suddenly, this tiny microbial renegade has figured out a way to substitute phosphorus for arsenic—and not just survive, but prosper.
In just six days, the bacterium multiplied twenty-fold, wolfing down the pernicious element, belching, and coming back for more.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon, one of the lead researchers, summed up the paradigm shift:
“As someone who regularly gives lectures in which I state, ‘every living thing uses phosphorus to build its DNA,’ the idea that I’m sitting here today discussing the possibility that that’s not true is… shocking.”
The implications? If life can thrive on arsenic, maybe we need to widen the search parameters for alien life.
“Maybe we’ll be able to find E.T. now because we’ve got more information about what we might be looking for.”
While Felisa and her merry band of astrobiologists at Arizona State University were busy redefining the boundaries of life in the context of Mars and Venus, their discovery seems far more relevant to the increasingly toxic cesspool we’re creating here on Earth.
What a relief to know that evolution has already begun its work, adapting life to the acid-rain-filled future we seem hellbent on creating.
Makes you want to pump out a few more kids immediately, doesn’t it?
Because, hey, after we’ve burned every last gallon of fossil fuel, clear-cut the last oxygen-producing tree, and filled the oceans with plastic, we’ll be just fine—as long as we can convert our DNA to feed on poison.
On a microbiotic level, life is already learning to survive in toxins.
So don’t sweat recycling, alternative energy, or reducing your footprint—evolution’s got this.
That’s what evolution does when it sees shit going sideways. The ingenious cellular machinery of lipids, proteins, and enzymes is already hard at work, incorporating not just arsenic, but every other vile byproduct we’ve manufactured into our molecular being.
We can stay the course, bringing hell to Earth as we know it—hopefully without commercial interruption.
Happy Shopping Season! 🎁🔥