Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Arsenic Life Affair. On December 2, 2010, NASA-funded scientists announced that they had discovered a microbe in Mono Lake that broke the rules of biology. They claimed it could build DNA from arsenic rather than phosophorus. It was a sensational claim, and it was greeted by a spectacular backlash.

Alan Boyle takes a close look at arsenic life on its first birthday over at MSNBC. Other scientists have yet to report whether they can replicate the results or not (the bet of many experts is on not). Meanwhile, other researchers are studying its biology, sequencing its genome, and otherwise investigating it as they would any new microbe. It seems as if the arsenic