arsenic bacteria

I've been strangely fascinated by the "arsenic-eating" and maybe "arsenic-utilizing' bacteria report from NASA researchers and the so-called "backlash" ("arsenic-gate") in the blogosphere. Many others have posted on this topic. What I've found most interesting is that there seem to be several parallel and barely intersecting universes: 1) the scientific literature, 2) the traditional media, and 3) the blogosphere. Universe 1: Wolfe-Simon has published for several years about the potential for unique arsenic metabolism (among other topics), and this is the next paper in her series of…