NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  1. Content with the tag: “phosphorus

  2. Arsenic Bacterium Study: Comments and Authors’ Response


    In December of last year, NASA Astrobiology Program Postdoctoral Fellow Felisa Wolfe-Simon and collaborators published a paper online in Science Express describing a bacterium that substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth when in arsenic-rich, phosphorus-depleted medium. Their data showed evidence for arsenate in macromolecules that normally contain phosphate, most notably nucleic acids and proteins. In response to considerable feedback, Science Express has published eight technical comments and a response from Wolfe-Simon and her collaborators. The final version of the original paper will appear in the June 3 print issue of Science....

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  3. Phosphorus and the Global Breath of Fresh Air


    NAI and Exobiology Program scientists have studied the ratio of phosphorus to iron in ancient marine deposits, and have found that phosphorus levels are linked to the rapid diversification of animal life that began at the end of the Proterozoic era, about 700 million years ago. Their paper appears in a recent issue of Nature.

    An increase in atmospheric oxygen at the time provided “raw material” for the evolution of respiration (breathing) and contributed to a protective ozone layer. The end of global “snowball Earth” glaciations likely paved the way for animal life to flourish, too, but...

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  4. Strategies for Evolutionary Success - Sulfolipids


    Researchers from NAI’s University of Rhode Island Team and their colleagues have studied the use of phosphorus vs. sulfur in the membrane lipid sythesis pathways of organisms resident in the ocean’s subtropical gyres. Their data show that the dominant organism in the phytoplankton, a cyanobacterium, has evolved a “sulfur-for-phosphorus” strategy; producing a membrane lipid containing sulfate and sugar instead of phosphate. This adaptation may have been a major event in Earth’s early history when the relative availability of sulfate and phosphate was different than in today’s oceans. Their paper appears in the June 6th issue of PNAS.

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