http://www.stuff.co.nz/4418593/Arsenic-loving-bacteria-redefines-life
I for one welcome our new Arsenician overlords.
A strange, salty lake in California has yielded an equally strange bacterium that thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it, researchers say.
The bacteria do not merely eat arsenic - they incorporate the toxic element directly into their DNA, the researchers said today.
The finding shows just how little scientists know about the variety of life forms on Earth, and may greatly expand where they should be looking for life on other planets and moons, the NASA-funded team said.
"Life as we know it requires particular chemical elements and excludes others," Ariel Anbar of Arizona State University said in a statement.
"But are those the only options? How different could life be?"
The study, published in the journal Science, demonstrates that one of the most notorious poisons on Earth can also be the very stuff of life for some creatures.
I for one welcome our new Arsenician overlords.