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Arsenic-Friendly Microbe Now Seems Unlikely
The Associated Press (as carried by the Washington Post) reports that the controversial report of arsenic-based life-forms in a California lake (much hyped by NASA) look suddenly less controversial, but in a way that will disappoint those who hoped that such an unexpected thing had actually been found on earth. Instead, the journal Science "released two papers that rip apart the original research. They 'clearly show' that the bacteria can't use arsenic as the researchers claimed, said an accompanying statement from the journal." USA Today's version of the story points out that the claim, and subsequent considered rejection of that claim as unsupportable, "looks like a case study in how science corrects its mistakes."
It's too bad. The author of the original research was totally hot.
I think it is worth while to point out that, of the 5 independent investigations that were launched as a result of the so-called "Climategate", all 5 have exonerated the Climatologists under investigation. None of the 5 were able to find any evidence of scientific malpractice. I'd call that, coupled with the endorsement of the G8 (+5) national academies of science, a pretty unequivocal vindication of the science of Global Climate Change.
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Right now, all we have the shuttle
No, you don't
I've checked both papers (in fact have both of them opened right now...). Both papers show that the bacteria does not incorporate arsenic into DNA what so ever. It is sad that two research groups had to 'waste' their time proving what everyone already knew. I really mean _knew_ not assume. There were so many flaws in the original paper that it should have been shot down by the reviewers... but wasn't.