POST-PRESS: New Halomonadaceae Strain Grows With Arsenic

If arsenic can be toxic to humans, the new strain of Halomonadaceae strives, and indeed grew, with arsenic as food. And interestingly the more arsenic scientists put up with with them, the more they grew.

The GFAJ-1 strain of Halomonadaceae, a family of water-loving Gram-negative bacteria, has been isolated, and grown (cultured), from the sediments collected along the shore of Mono Lake, near Yosemite National Park, in eastern California. It thrives on arsenic or phosophorus.

What is doubly interesting here is that GFAJ-1 does not only consume arsenic, it directly incorporate the toxic element into their genetic material (DNA). "We know some microbes can 'breathe' arsenic. But what we've found is a microbe doing something new--building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, who headed the research team. (Read more.)

(photo by Wikimedia)

Comments

Deadly X-Gene Mutants

A RECENT study on macrophages (i.e. defensive cells in our body that engulf threatening substances inside our body) introduced me to a lethal, genetic disease that targets the male population. This disease is called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), named after the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, who described it in 1861. While it has an incidence of one in 3,500 newborn males, health experts consider this as the most common lethal disease of childhood around the world. Mutation in the male (X) chromosome [dystrophin gene, locus Xp21] causes a rapid degeneration of the muscles, leading into an eventual loss of walking ability and then death. While females do not exhibit symptoms, they can be carriers of these defective genes, especially if the father had this condition or the mother is also a carrier. Symptoms usually appear before age five; at times visible in early infancy. These symptoms involve... ( Read more .) This article appears in Sun-Star Ce...

Death By Heat Stroke in the Philippines

The hotter and earlier-onset El Niño phenomenon this year 2010 poses a threat to the Filipino lives. How much life it took? See incidence that reached the news. UPDATE On 19 May 2010, candidate army soldier Ericson Pascua (22) came on his first day of training in Isabela when he collapsed after a series of strenous exercise. Although rushed to the hospital immediately, he died shortly afterwards (around 11 a.m.) due to heat stroke. That day Isabela peaked at 38.2 degrees Celsius. Sixteen others were rushed to the hospital for dehydration and heat exhaustion. (Check report ) On 28 April 2010, a veteran Cavite cop, PO3 Florencio Gamana Alivio (48), succumbed to cardiac arrest as a result to heatstroke while having tae bo with his colleagues at the Cavite Police Provincial Office (CPPO) grounds in Camp General Pantaleon. He reached the Imus MEdical Center but pronounced dead at 5:15 PM. (Check report ) In Batangas, former governor Amando Sanchez (57)di...

Breakthroughs Today

Search This Blog