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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 nice to see that the matter was cleared up relatively quickly(the media circus wasn't pretty; but it could have been worse).
On the minus side, arsenic-crazed bacteria are a rather cool theory to have dashed against the rocks of callous empiricism. Hopefully some sort of selective breeding experiment can succeed where nature has failed, and give us an organism that substitutes some or all of its phosphorus for arsenic...
Baseless claim followed by ludicrous proposal followed by religious nuttery. 2/10 troll.
slow on the draw there, I see.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
It's too bad. The author of the original research was totally hot.
Just to give you perspective, the entire wealth of Bill Gates would fund the federal government for 5 days. It's kind of depressing how little the richest man in the world could actually accomplish.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
ROFL
Thanks for that.
I can think of better things to with billions of dollars than create strange bacteria. The space elevator comes to mind.
Craig Venter already made an artificial bacterium. Pretty sure there has been at least one slashdot story covering it. Making artificial life is kind of a "We are going to land on the moon" type achievement. A lot was learned or will be learned along the way, like how to manipulate large amounts of DNA sequences, and requirements for life. The longer term goal seems to be to make bacteria that will eat oil spills, or make oil or whatever else we want. Organic nanomachines.
I don't know a whole lot about it, there's plenty of information out there about it that I'm not too interested in reading, but I do know it can't be simply written off as useless. In fact, from what I know, it could be more useful than a space elevator. Space elevators have little chance of reversing global warming, for example, but it's conceivable that we could make microbes that would eat up the excess carbon. Lets not get into an argument about which future technology will be useful, obviously.
Anyway, progress on the two are hardly mutually exclusive.
Space Elevators and Arsenic friendly bacteria... These are the examples provided by those who advocate wealth confiscation as superior appropriations of the earth's limited resources than would otherwise be made by the proposed victim of asset forfeiture... Bill Gates, you know? The philanthropist and founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, a charity which has squandered the money in question on such petty causes as CURING MALARIA!
If you were looking you could not find a better example of why social engineered redistribution of wealth is less beneficial to society than leaving it the hands of the people who accumulated it in the first place.
Just in case anyone thought the above morons were on to something, the nationalization of private property would cause an instant market panic which would destabilize the economy and translate in to a DECREASE in government revenues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
He should have called it the Arthur curve.
That is the one thing great about science. Science admits its wrongs...
Religion simply can not do that because GOD IS NEVER WRONG...grrrrr blarggggg ahhhhhhh
"That's right...I said it."
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/07/06/science.1219861 and http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/07/06/science.1218455
The original study was published in Science, one of the most prestigious journals with high rejection rate. Just another proof highly selective journals by commercial publishers don't decide to publish based on technical correctness but on trendiness. Sensationalistic papers are accepted even if they are technically incorrect, technically correct but non trendy ones are rejected because they're too boring. This is the biggest problem with commercial scientific publishing, they have no incentive to publish correct science, only incentives to publish science that get them in the newpapers.
I don't buy in to the "more humans = bad" paradigm. It's well known that the highest birth rates are in impoverished countries that have high infant mortality. Humans are instinctively driven to grow population levels so the unintended consequence to 3rd world living conditions is an increased growth rate relative to 1st world countries. John the middle class only-child has n-resources required in his upbringing, while if 6 children die before John VII the Sub-Saharan African child survives, he has N*7 resources necessary to bring him to adulthood.
If the middle class child consumes some multiple of N beyond the requirement, it is not a fundamental flaw in human existence, but an opportunity created by the market inefficiency of 3rd world child-rearing. John the middle class child will likely contribute significantly more to society in the form of taxes than it cost to raise him making him financially exothermic. Meanwhile, based on the same idea of human capital, John the African child is likely endothermic based on the broken window fallacy type destruction resulting from the spread of disease caused by his & his 6 predecessors infected blood.
Bottom line, if the average human consumed more than they produced, we would all be starving. The majority of humanity may be useless wastes of flesh, but the ones who get off their ass and earn even a modest paycheck contribute a surprising amount to government revenues, even if only by proxy through the taxation of the goods they purchase and the associated incomes that went in to their production.
A trivial investment in education and basic preventative medicine yields a stunningly high ROI from tax revenues on the economic activity created. Malaria medication and mosquito netting are literally worth their weight in gold, even if the dividends are hard to track or quantify.
My point is, when everyone shows up to the government coffers with their pet project's hand out, including my malaria tin cup, you quickly find tax revenues allocated to more pet projects than can be sustained, and quite like a credit addicted american consumer, no one wants to pay for yesterday's shiny pet project financed with easy tomorrow dollars today. Democracy is not a practical way of allocating resources which is a job best left to markets and philanthropy. Not the kind with other people's money.
When you have billions (in value or cash), it's easy to be philanthropic.
I'm infinitely more impressed by the guy who was earning 20k and had pledged to give a million away within ten years. And was doing it.
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
Sounds like these folks made the same error as the original author. Let us not speculate on weather the arsenic has been assimilated into critical molecules inside the organism. Let them instead determine the chemical composition of the actual molecules in the organism and say definitively what is going on. I for one took the original research as somewhat speculative since they had not done this, and hence a call to others to do proper analysis. So now the others have apparently done more incomplete research. I may be misinterpreting that "can't use arsenic" is not the same as "does not use arsenic". It's hard to tell without reading the original works.
Confusion is one of the effects of arsenic poisoning; I suggest the AC go to the doctor immediately.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
and unfortunately a win for the nutters who say that we (the earth) are the only life made by God.
Odd, I've never met any of them. However unlikely it may be, they actually could be right. What's nutty is assuming without any proof whatever that there is life elsewhere. There probably is, but just saying "it has to be" is stupid.
Free Martian Whores!
...she apparently published a paper in 2009 talking about how arsenic may have been used in the past and might be used now. Then in 2010 she happens to find an example?
She didn't admit any mistake, question any methods, she gripped onto her statements with ego and a religious fanaticism. And it happens every day.
Yes, but she's not the Pope. As other find flaws with her research, and these flaws are confirmed by multiple parties, then her findings (or "beliefs") will fall out of the general body of knowledge. If someone reaches a different religious conclusion, such as gay people can not be priests or bishops, then they will break off and form a splinter group (cf. recent happenings in the Anglican Church) and maintain that their beliefs are more valid than those of the original group. And due to our (read: American/Western) mores of religious freedom, we are inclined to not challenge them on it in any meaningful way.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
the people that did that Bad Science should go and consult on Discovery Channel "docu-dramas"
So you want them to peddle their Bad Science to the general public, who then go out and vote for School Board members?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Apparently you didn't notice that the Shuttles are now on their way to various museums around the country. Damn, stupid, ignorant AND uninformed. That's quite a combination you've got going there.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
A standard space elevator isn't actually technologically possible right now. We still don't have materials strong enough to make a tether that can reach that far without breaking under its own weight, even with an optimal shape. Don't say graphene, by the way. It might be strong enough, but we still can't actually manufacture it in enough quantity to even test the idea. Also, since graphene is naturally a sheet, you'd have to roll it up into tubes, in which case it's just carbon nanotubes, which we've know about even longer than graphene and which we can't make in sufficient quantity or length to test either.
Believe me, I'm all for a space elevator or some similar technology to make access to space either, but we're just not there yet. We do, however, have all of the actual technology (if not the practical experience, which we'll have to learn by doing) to make various other technologies for accessing space more easily. Skyhooks, for example, might allow us to boost cargo launched on high-altitude planes or dirigibles. We might also be able to construct a launch loop. We probably also have all the necessary tech to build a space elevator that anchors to an orbital ring a hundred kilometers up rather than at geosynchronous orbit.
Hmm, couldn't resist posting myself, but I have to point out that all of this is in response to a ridiculous troll post. It's probably unhealthy to contribute to the off-topic thread.
Apparently you didn't notice that the Shuttles are now on their way to various museums around the country. Damn, stupid, ignorant AND uninformed. That's quite a combination you've got going there.
I agree, the gradual, ever-increasing slide into the abyss of mediocrity...SQUIRREL!!!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.