But in Mono Lake in California, Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues had found a type of bacteria, GFAJ-1, that seemed to have replaced phosphorus with arsenic.
Or Barclays Wealth, which has seen its annual meeting at Lake Como dished up in the newspapers with the type of venom usually reserved for celebrity kiss-and-tells.
Named Blanket Bay (after the blankets used by sheep shearers here in the 19th century to keep wool dry), the resort is the type of luxe but rough-hewn lodge one might expect to find in the Adirondacks or at Lake Tahoe.