{"id":500,"date":"2010-12-03T09:14:01","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T09:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lewisdartnell.com\/en-gb\/?p=500"},"modified":"2010-12-03T09:14:01","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T09:14:01","slug":"arsenic-bacteria-and-alien-life-lessons-from-an-internet-frenzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lewisdartnell.com\/en-gb\/2010\/12\/arsenic-bacteria-and-alien-life-lessons-from-an-internet-frenzy\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenic, bacteria and alien life: Lessons from an internet frenzy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lewis.dsruptiv.net\/en-gb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Arsenic_life.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-208\" alt=\"Arsenic_life\" src=\"http:\/\/lewis.dsruptiv.net\/en-gb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Arsenic_life.jpg\" width=\"135\" height=\"124\" \/><\/a>December 2010 saw the announcement on the Nasa website of a press conference described enigmatically only as to &#8220;discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life&#8221;. Speculation exploded across the Internet regarding the discovery due to be announced, and I gave an interview to a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/sol\/homepage\/news\/3253913\/NASA-researchers-find-life-in-poisonous-arsenic-lake-in-USA.html\" target=\"_blank\">Sun<\/a>\u00a0journalist in an attempt to quash this heresay, which was widely quoted on websites and newspapers including the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/science\/space\/8174040\/Life-as-we-dont-know-it-discovery-could-prove-existence-of-aliens.html\" target=\"_blank\">Telegraph<\/a>. After the Nasa press conference was delivered, and the news finally announced as to what had actually been discovered, I wrote this Opinion piece for the Guardian as a perspective on the whole affair.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full story on The Guardian <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/blog\/2010\/dec\/03\/arsenic-bacteria-alien-life\">website<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"StumbleUpon\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"Lewis_Dartnell\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Arsenic%2C%20bacteria%20and%20alien%20life%3A%20Lessons%20from%20an%20internet%20frenzy\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 2010 saw the announcement on the Nasa website of a press conference described enigmatically only as to &#8220;discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life&#8221;. Speculation exploded across the Internet regarding the discovery due to be announced, and I gave an interview to a\u00a0Sun\u00a0journalist in an attempt to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-science-writing","category-the-guardian"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Arsenic, bacteria and alien life: Lessons from an internet frenzy - Lewis Dartnell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/lewisdartnell.com\/en-gb\/2010\/12\/arsenic-bacteria-and-alien-life-lessons-from-an-internet-frenzy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arsenic, bacteria and alien life: Lessons from an internet frenzy - Lewis Dartnell\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 2010 saw the announcement on the Nasa website of a press conference described enigmatically only as to &#8220;discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life&#8221;. 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