Claim made for new form of life

The existence of nannobacteria is one of the most controversial of scientific questions - some experts claim they are simply too small to be life forms.

But US scientists report they have now isolated these cell-like structures in tissue from diseased human arteries.

There are controversies for whether or not these are really life forms, but Dr. Miller's explanation seems to nail it:

"One of the questions we always get back is: 'well, how do you know it's alive if it doesn't have a unique DNA sequence?' This is true," Dr Miller explained.

"But if you go back to how we defined life prior to our knowing about DNA, our criteria was that things multiplied in culture. This is what we have."

Think about the implications if these proven to be true.

The nano-scale objects showed up in tissue from patients with calcified arterial aneurysms but not uncalcified samples.

Nannobacteria have been implicated by some scientists in the formation of kidney stones and psammona bodies - calcified (mineralised) structures in ovarian cancer.

New treatments for fighting cancer, kidney disease and arterial aneurysms could become available for the millions of folks who are affected.

BBC has provided an external link on Nanobacteria: http://www.msstate.edu/dept/geosciences/4site/nannobacteria.htm