GFAJ-1 bacteria.

Ron Oremland with the US Geological Survey has been studying elements and microbes in Mono Lake for a long time. Staff with the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve and the Mono Lake Committee have been in contact with him in order to help the interpretive partnership at Mono Lake (National Forest Scenic Area, State Natural Reserve, and Mono Lake Committee) develop interpretive materials to explain NASA’s arsenic bacteria discovery to the public.  You can read 24 scientific papers on arsenic and Mono Lake (more…)

Last week the office buzzed with phone calls and inquiries related to the NASA announcement that bacterium from the bottom of Mono Lake has replaced phosphorus—once believed to be an essential element for life—with arsenic, which has huge implications for our understanding of life on earth and beyond.

For decades, Mono Lake has attracted scientists who have studied almost every aspect about this place. Much of that research was used to inform the 1994 State Water Board decision that “saved” Mono Lake from (more…)

Thanks to the Mono Lake Committee’s efforts to save Mono Lake starting in 1978, the lake still exists today and is available for scientific discoveries such as the incredible finding NASA announced yesterday. Geoff McQuilkin, the Committee’s Executive Director, had a few words to say to our local media about the discovery.

And don’t miss viewing fantastic scenic Mono Lake film footage from the Mono Lake Committee’s film.

The news of NASA’s Mono Lake bacteria discovery is being reported extensively worldwide (read more on the discovery here on the Mono-logue).

The ability of the remarkable GFAJ-1 bacterium to use arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA is unmatched by any other known organism and changes the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth. This has been an exciting day here at the Mono Lake Committee–and we’re sure proud that decades of citizen effort to protect Mono Lake have assured a place for this incredible discovery to happen!

Here’s a wrap-up of today’s network news coverage. And don’t miss the fantastic scenic Mono Lake film footage in the promo for the Mono Lake Committee’s film that is in production.

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams

CNN (includes interview with lead researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon)
(more…)

With this morning’s press conference concluded, NASA has released a statement on the tremendous findings made by Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her NASA team. Wow—certainly another reason why Mono Lake is worth saving.

Check out the feature on NASA’s website and the statement below.

From NASA

Dec. 02, 2010

RELEASE: 10-320

NASA-FUNDED RESEARCH DISCOVERS LIFE BUILT WITH TOXIC CHEMICAL

WASHINGTON -- NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the
fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth. (more...)

ISS image of Mono Lake, where arsenic and abundant life both exist. Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center.

Mono Lake is usually in the spotlight for photographers, birders, and those seeking solutions to balanced water needs in California. You don’t see many geochemists, astrobiologists, or NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory staff plying Mono’s shoreline. However, they certainly have been around over the years, and it seems that Mono Lake is getting a little more attention due to it harboring an arsenic-eating microbe. The greater implication for our understanding of life here and elsewhere is exciting … but don’t conclude that Mono Lake is a toxic, arsenic-saturated lake!

There is arsenic in Mono Lake, but it’s (more…)

News of NASA’s recent ground-breaking finding that a bacterium, discovered at Mono Lake, could eat and grow on a diet of arsenic instead of phosphorus, has the Mono Lake Committee office buzzing with phone calls and emails from around the world. The implications for this information are astounding….

See the details in this morning’s  New York Times article.

This new BBC article is also quite good.

You can also watch the press conference here at 11:00am Pacific time for the latest news.

Tufa towers at Mono Lake in California's Eastern Sierra.

UPDATE: December 2, 2010: The press conference is over and the news is huge. See all our coverage of this major announcement here!

Today NASA announced a press conference that will discuss

“an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.”

Internet discussion is abuzz and many speculations expect the announcement to include Mono Lake, in particular discussion of arsenic-loving bacteria within the lake, perhaps a newly discovered species. We’ll wait for the announcement, but Mono Lake’s bacterial residents may well reveal that entirely new and unexpected forms of life are possible on other planets.

More news as we hear it. The press conference is scheduled for December 2, 2010 at 2:00 pm Eastern Time (that’s 11am to us Mono Lake folks). Oh, and though many media reports are saying Mono Lake is within Yosemite National Park, don’t forget that the lake actually lies just outside the popular park, right in the heart of the Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area!

Previous discussion in The Mono-logue: Mono Lake and the shadow biosphere

On the Internet: ‘Life as we don’t know it’ discovery could prove existence of aliens

ISS image of Mono, Walker, Tahoe, Pyramid lakes with Western Nevada and California to the Pacific. Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth."

NASA recently reported that Earth’s largest lakes have warmed in response to climate change. While Mono Lake is not a data point in this study, its neighbors to the north—Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe—reveal a small upward trend in warming. In December 2009 NASA revealed that Mono Lake, among other lakes in the region, was warming (more…)

Eared Grebes pepper Mono Lake's surface in this view through a spotting scope. Photo by Bartshe Miller.

Researcher Sean Boyd with the Pacific Wildlife Research Center recently finished tallying up the results of the October 13th Eared Grebe survey on Mono Lake. No easy task, since the only way to come up with an accurate estimate is to laboriously count the tiny grey specks in each of about 500 aerial photos of the lake surface. Once Mr. Boyd has converted the raw numbers to densities (#/km²), adjusted for scale, and extrapolated based on the current surface area of the lake, he can provide a final count.

This year the survey resulted in a total of (more…)