Ruh-roh…
http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/
Almost unanimously, they think the NASA scientists have failed to make their case. “It would be really cool if such a bug existed,” said San Diego State University’s Forest Rohwer, a microbiologist who looks for new species of bacteria and viruses in coral reefs. But, he added, “none of the arguments are very convincing on their own.” That was about as positive as the critics could get. “This paper should not have been published,” said Shelley Copley of the University of Colorado.
Angry biologist-fight! Woo!.
Or, as Fark would put it…
Raise your hand, everyone who’s found arsenic-based life. Not so fast, NASA
Now, I can’t say one way or the other whether the report was based on bad science or not. I’m not a biologist or biochemist… and somewhat more importantly, I haven’t read the paper. But if this is a case where sloppy science created a news story that doesn’t really exist… then that’s bad science on top of an already seriously annoying PR flop. NASA got us space-nuts all worked up over the hope of “bugs on Mars/Titan Europa,” and now it looks like theior seriously disappointing news might be even more disappointing.
Bah.
3 Responses to “Arsenic-based bugs: Whooops!”
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Hey, it’s the Martian meteorite with bacteria in it all over again. 😀
When I saw that press conference the woman microbiologist came off as a bit nuts.
All this would be hilariously funny if it was on a sitcom, or maybe even in one of the humorous Star Trek or X Files episodes. Instead, the organization that first took mankind to an alien celestial body, who lead advances in computing and material sciences, has found a bug, that could possibly be like a bug that could possibly be on another planet. Really?
Isn’t this basically what science fiction writers have been suggesting for the last 100 years?
Imagine that… that alien life COULD actually be alien!
NASA is really getting swatted at now over this:
http://www.aolnews.com/science/article/nasas-bacteria-arsenic-finding-flim-flam-or-compelling/19752261
“Lots of flim-flam, but very little reliable information,” Redfield wrote on her blog. “I don’t know whether the authors are just bad scientists or whether they’re unscrupulously pushing NASA’s ‘There’s life in outer space’ agenda.”