Arsenic sits below phosphorus on the periodic table and shares many of its chemical properties. So, Dr. Felisa Wolf-Simon, a NASA astrobiology fellow at the United States Geological Survey in California, led an experiment to see if arsenic could replace phosphorus in bacterium. This bacterium was scraped from Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic.

Their discovery opens up the possibility that organisms could exist elsewhere in the universe, using “biochemical powers we have not yet dared to dream about.” The bacterium was successfully trained to eat and grow on a diet consisting of arsenic in place of phosphorus.

The New York Times included this snippet in their article, which gives us something to chew on:

Gerald Joyce, a chemist and molecular biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., said the work “shows in principle that you could have a different form of life,” but noted that even these bacteria are affixed to the same tree of life as the rest of us, like the extremophiles that exist in ocean vents.

“It’s a really nice story about adaptability of our life form,” he said. “It gives food for thought about what might be possible in another world.”

Despite this taste for arsenic, the authors also reported, the GFAJ-1 strain grew considerably better when provided with phosphorus, so in some ways they still prefer a phosphorus diet. Dr. Joyce, from his reading of the paper, concurred, pointing out that there was still some phosphorus in the bacterium even after all its force-feeding with arsenic. He described it as “clinging to every last phosphate molecule, and really living on the edge.”

Dr. Joyce added, “I was feeling sorry for the bugs.” [READ THE FULL NY TIMES ARTICLE HERE]

I feel sorry for the bugs, too.

In an interesting reactionary post, Bryce Zabel, co-author of A.D.: After Disclosure, weighed in with his opinion of today’s conference:

Dear NASA… We like the Super-Tough Microbes, Yes, But…

Sometimes you just feel like you need to pull your fists out of the ceiling.

NASA should know better, and may, but still pretends it doesn’t. Meanwhile, the ruling elite of the media buy the whole story.

That story — today’s edition — concerns some microbes that can exist in the extremely salty, alkaline, arsenic-rich body of water in eastern California that’s known as Mono Lake. This stew should kill most living things, crushing any primitive will to live completely. This new life form uses arsenic in place of phosphorus to build DNA and proteins. Because Mono Lake is such an inhospitable environment for life, the storyline goes, this means that maybe we can find life in some places we might never have thought to look before. READ THE REST OF ZABEL’S POST

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Copyright © 2010 Cherlyn Gardner Strong

Read more of Cherlyn’s posts at her Paranormal Old Pueblo website

He said:

“There is no doubt that there is life out there; the mathematics of it lead you to that absolute conclusion. In my mind, there is no doubt that the universe teems – teems! – with life in all its forms. But why they would come visit here and not let themselves be known to everybody is beyond my sense of logic”.

He’s no Spock, that’s for sure! While he was at it, though, Shatner also offered an opinion about UFOs:

“Why would you fly the years or millenniums (it would take) to (get here)? Why wouldn’t they just land and say, ‘Here we are, we’re tired, got any ice cream?”

The former Captain Kirk has always been skeptical about those UFOs. Despite once saying he saw one, he did come clean about lying (his own word), in a New York Times interview (promoting his book) from 2008:

(New York Times): Later you confess to having lied about seeing UFOs when you crashed your motorcycle in the desert.
(William Shatner): Well, that’s true, but I tell the truth in the book. I tell the truth that I lied. I wonder what the philosophical implications are of that. I think that I do lie sometimes, but only to save feelings or my own skin.

Well, that is one amusing statement. However, let’s go back to that earlier statement about aliens flying “years or millenniums” to get to Earth. Does Shatner understand the concept of ‘warp speed’ that made it possible for the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to boldly go where no man has gone before?

Sure, we can’t do it now, but physicists think it may be possible. Since the universe is “teeming” with aliens, perhaps some of those aliens already found a way to make it possible. Through science, Earthlings just may figure out how to make it possible.

Two Baylor University Earthlings (researchers) were featured in a 2009 Science Daily article with their hypothesis regarding traveling at warp speed. They won’t know if it is possible for a while, but at least they are thinking about the possibilities.

Some basic concepts presented by Star Trek have already become reality in some form or another, if you think about it. Consider the articles all over the internet on the subject.

Here’s a good one from May 2010.

Consider these words that helped to put Initiative 300 on the ballot:

“Since the U.S. Government continually refuses to openly and honestly deal with this matter and protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens, we need to handle it at a more accessible and accountable level of government.”

This statement sounds like it came from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, doesn’t it? Nope, it came from Jeff Peckman. You might even think that Peckman and Brewer are talking about the same thing. Well, similarities can be drawn, but no, they are not.

While Brewer is focused on an invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico during election time, Peckman is fighting for preparedness for a possible invasion from outer space.

On November 2nd, voters in Denver will decide whether to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. Peckman obtained more than enough valid signatures for this initiative to place it on the November ballot.

The Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission would consist of a seven person panel that would have many responsibilities, including:

Dealing with credible citizen reports of UFOs

Responsibly listening to, or documenting reports of, encounters or abductions regardless of the highly unusual and credible evidence

Referring such reports to private professional individuals and organizations that have dealt with such matters responsibly

Dealing with citizens that know of no place to turn for help on potentially traumatic experiences.

Peckman kicked off his voter education campaign this week. In an interview with Denver Daily News, Peckman said that he intends to “educate the voters with as many good facts as I can get in from of them when they’re paying attention.”

Additionally, he stresses that the commission will not cost taxpayers anything. The seven person panel would consist of knowledgeable experts who volunteer their time. Peckman added: “The commission would be funded entirely by grants, gifts and donations.”

Those outside of Denver who are interested in keeping up with the information presented during the Voter Education campaign, click here.



“If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”

Wang Sichao. a researcher and astronomer at the Purple Hills  Observatory, stated last week that his view is not entirely aligned with Hawking’s. He believes that preparedness for a potential invasion along with a “wait and see” approach is in order:

“If they are friendly to us, we can promote the human beings’ civilization through exchange and cooperation with them. If they are not, as long as we prepared for their invasion, we can beat them back based on their weaknesses. After all, they are life entities, they would show their slips.”

For those who might have missed it, the debate really heated up earlier this month, at the SETICon Convention held in Silicon Valley, California.

Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition, SETI asked:

“Even if they tend to be hateful, awful folks, can they do us any harm at interstellar distances?”

John Billingham, former chairman of the SETI Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics said:

“Personally, I agree with Hawking and think it may be unwise to transmit.

On whether we just listen for transmissions or transmit messages, Billingham recommended establishing an international conference to get feedback from the entire world on the matter.

SETI Institute senior astronomer Seth Shostak took the most logical view out of the entire SETIcon bunch. He argued that the whole issue is moot because Earth has been radiating signals into space for decades, in the form of “leakage” from radio and television broadcasts. Extraterrestrials could detect us if they really wanted to.

He added:

“This horse has left the barn. Any society that could possibly be a threat to us can easily know at least that we’re here. There’s no point in losing sleep over this.”

Plus, why are they all worried about it anyway?

The continuation of this debate comes two years after NASA deliberately sent a transmission into space – in 2008. They sent a song by the Beatles called “Across the Universe”.

NASA has sent transmissions to our astronauts in space during each and every space mission. This transmission was aimed further than our astronauts have gone before. Specifically, across the universe at the North Star, Polaris.

The song, “Across the Universe”, was chosen to commemorate both NASA’s and The Beatle’s 50th anniversary, as well as the 40th anniversary of the recording of the song. At the time of the transmission, NASA publicized the reactions of Former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.

McCartney said of the transmission:

“Amazing! Well done, NASA! Send my love to the aliens.”

Well, Sir Paul McCartney, that’s exactly what they did!

Ono said of the transmission:

“I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets throughout the universe.”

Yoko Ono’s view was very optimistic and in tune with most earthlings.

Neither of them seemed very worried over it. Most of earth’s population isn’t worried about it, either. The experts seem to be worried about it. So…

What about the telescopes and robotic equipment we’ve hurled at different targets in space? We are aiming that equipment further and further into space all the time. The equipment transmits information back to us all the time in our search for alien life. Well, extraterrestrial bacteria life does count. Couldn’t an intelligent extraterrestrial follow those transmission trails, like bread crumbs, from our equipment in space back to Earth anyway?

If extraterrestrials can be that intelligent to receive a transmission and come strip mine Earth as the experts assert as a possibility, then yes. They can just follow the information that the telescopes, landers, and other equipment broadcast back our way to the planet Earth.

Whether we are sending messages out or receiving them though space via our own equipment, I think it’s really too late to waste the time debating over it.

I also think that there’s no point in hiding if we want to learn anything, good or bad.  We’ve broadcasted ourselves from outside of the earth in some form or another for well over 50 years. That’s a long time to be broadcasting ourselves without receiving a a single response in the form of an alien invasion.

We’ve got signals and data bouncing off of those satellites, leaking noise all over the place. We are a very noisy civilization on this planet called Earth.

The United States Space Surveillance Network has tracked 26,000 space objects since Sputnik I was launched by the Russians in 1957. Some of those objects have re-entered earth’s atmosphere and either disintegrated or impacted Earth’s surface. Remember the international media frenzy over Skylab’s re-entry and subsequent impact on Earth in 1979?  There are still more than 8,000 man-made orbiting objects orbiting Earth and sending and receiving all sorts of data. Personally, I worry about space debris impacting earth more than I worry about aliens invading it.

So, back to those experts, I do lean towards the expert opinions of two of them. Seth Shostak and Wang Sichao get my vote.

We should be prepared for any attack whether it comes from an earthbound threat or from space invaders.

We also should quit worrying about it.

I, for one, think that Earth should turn up the volume and be the official ghetto blaster of the universe. Let’s blast our noise as far as we can get it and just vibrate the heck out space. If an extraterrestrial does come all the way to earth to visit us, I also think that it is very important to follow that age-old advice: Don’t show fear.

It’s good advice that applies to many situations. It really does go a long way.

In the meantime, enjoy the love transmitted into space by NASA. Hopefully the love will be returned back to us someday.

Betting officials have experienced a surge of bets after the declassification of files that show that Winston Churchill banned a “bizarre” UFO incident from disclosure. Churchill issued the order due to fears of mass hysteria and loss of faith in religion.

The incident in question involved a reconnaissance plane and its crew that was approached by a metallic UFO, which subsequently shadowed them on the English coast.

The files in question can be viewed online at the UK National Archives.

A spokesperson from William Hill, one of the largest bookmakers in the UK, says:  “We have had loads of calls. There are thousands of believers out there many of whom are putting their money on an imminent announcement.”

On a related note, Bet or Trade reports that William Hill has teamed up with the Fortean Times for a paranormal photo competition. You can earn four figures if your photo is selected. There are three categories in which you can enter your photos: extraterrestrial, paranormal and cryptozoological.

To enter your photos, and for full terms and conditions, visit : www.forteantimes.com

It is hard to ignore all the posts being made by the website “How Stuff Works” at the moment. They are apparently hard at work updating their “Aliens and UFOs” library. The library includes everything UFO and Alien: UFOs and the Government, UFOs and Government Secrecy, UFO Theory, UFO Reports, UFO Psychology, UFO Hoaxes, UFO History, UFO incidents, UFO Evidence etc.

It is very impressive to see all of the new and updated pages scroll by so quickly. There must be a dedicated team assigned the task of updating UFOs and alien information today.

If you would like to check it out, visit How Stuff Works – Aliens and UFOs.

Her name is Sheila Martin. Sheila spends an average of five hours a week on the Tucson user-controlled city cameras online, which she aims toward the skies. Evidence she captures is posted to her YouTube channel, which is beginning to gain a following. Sheila jokes that “Sheila” is “Aliens” spelled backwards, well, if you cut of the neck of the “h” in “Sheila.”

She began her YouTube UFO hobby quite by accident. One night, while checking on the progress of the construction via Stone Avenue webcam, she took control of it and aimed it toward the sky. She quickly saw unusual lights, which prompted her to combine the city cams with a free downloadable software application called YouCam. With YouCam, she can record and share what she sees on the city webcams. She readily admits that much of the video she captures via webcam could likely be earthly airplanes or helicopters. She invites experts to scrutinize her findings, noting the dates and times for possible comparison with weather, flight and space records. Although she has tried other controllable web cams outside of Tucson, she hasn’t found as much success as she has experienced in the Old Pueblo.

Martin is also interested in ghosts, and has participated in paranormal investigations with a group based in Sierra Vista. Cryptozoology is also intriguing to her, as she occasionally ponders over the existence of her favorite monster, Nessie (The Loch Ness Monster). She is a paranormal enthusiast in general. She is also a normal 23 year-old who is currently contempating career and educational goals. Kitty cats are constant source of joy in her life. She lovingly refers to felines as “alien angels” from above. Martin is interested in so many things, she hasn’t yet decided what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Modeling is another hobby that occupies some of her time. This pretty woman has secured a multitude of professional modeling gigs, but at 5′ 5″, she has found that her height has presented a barrier to her desired supermodel status. Still, she keeps aiming high with everything she does, despite her “vertical” challenge that limits her in the modeling field.

In the meantime, Martin works, searches for aliens, and goes out on dates. When asked if her paranormal enthusiasm has put a limit on potential dates, she replied with wholehearted assurance that it most certainly has not.

To watch Martin’s video channel on YouTube, click here.

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They're baaack...

There has been another letter abducted from the Google logo this morning. Today, it is the letter “L” that appears to be missing, depending on the way you look at it. This is less than two weeks since the “O” in Google was taken by aliens during Google’s last “Unexplained Phenomena.” The UFO from last time that my sister said looks eerily like a sombrero, has returned for a cyberspace encore.

The Google Doodle depicts the UFO hovering over four crop circles that are shaped like a “G”, 2 “O’s” and an “E”, of course. I dispute that the “L” is missing, because an “L” just isn’t “circular” like g, o and e (which arranged correctly, spells “ego”…no comment). There’s a line there with the green dot, same as last time, at the top of what I consider to be the “L” in Google.  Clicking on the Doodle returns “crop circles” search results.

Like last time, Google utilized Twitter to send a cryptic tweet around the world just past midnight. This time, the tweet simply read:  51.327629, -0.5616088. The message was quickly decoded as a straightforward map coordinate. The coordinates, 51.327629, -0.5616088 lead us Surrey, England. Surrey is a UFO hotspot. Of course, crop circles have been cropping up in Surrey since the late 1800′s…at least that’s when they were first noticed. Surrey is where H.G. Wells called home. Of course, Wells authored The Invisible Man and The War of The Worlds. Surrey was the setting for the latter novel, a tale of alien invasion. Are we honoring H.G. Wells this time? His birthday isn’t until Monday, so Google must want to start the celebration a week early.

I can’t think of The War of the Worlds, without thinking about Orson Welles’ 1938 Mercury Theatre on the Air radio broadcast of a play based on that book. The play was so well performed, that it managed to panic and terrify some listeners, who actually thought it was a broadcast of a real alien invasion. We are smart enough to know it isn’t really an alien invasion – at least most of us are level headed enough to know that. It is likely not Google’s intent to try to panic us, though we are skeptical about Google’s intent with this invasion of the Google UFO Doodles. So, what’s with this alien invasion that the folks at Google are broadcasting to us from inside the walls of the Googleplex?

Google Doodle, Google, Inc.

The Google logo (aka, Google Doodle)  changed yesterday, without any explanation. We’ve seen the “Google Doodle” reflect holidays and honor notable events in history over the years. Yet, as of yesterday, the logo simply depicts a UFO beaming up the second “o” in Google.

The logo in itself is an “unexplained phenomenon”, and clicking on the logo returns results related to “unexplained phenomenon.”  So, I am left scratching my head. Does the logo represent the fact that “unexplained phenomenon” is a popular search term?  Is Google driving traffic to that specific search term for a yet to be explained motive? Have the folks at Google been abducted by aliens?

While trying to decipher what Google is doing, I found that the first Google Doodle, posted in May 2000, utilized a UFO theme. The weeklong series of revisions to the Google logo incorporated spaceships and aliens, and were dubbed “alien intrigue.”  This current Doodle doesn’t seem to coincide with the anniversary of the first Doodle. The truth is out there, but I can’t seem to find it yet.

Update: “Shortly before midnight Eastern Time last night, Google posted the numeric phrase “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19 via their Twitter account. Substituting letters for numbers, this translates to “All your O are belong to us.” This phrase has been linked to: “All your base are belong to us,” a badly translated phrase from a Japanese video game that spread across internet in 2002.

UPDATE 2!: Bjay found some interesting information on Wikipedia:
“Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998.” Looks like the mystery may have been solved, right here in Tucson!