Do you remember this scientific bs

"Contrary to an original report, the new research clearly shows that the bacterium, GFAJ-1, cannot substitute arsenic for phosphorus to survive," said a statement by the US journal Science, a prestigious, peer-reviewed magazine.

Science published Sunday the much-hyped initial study in December 2010, with lead researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon, then a fellow in NASA's astrobiology program, announcing that a new form of life had been scooped from a California lake.

The bacterium in arsenic-rich Mono Lake was said to redefine the building blocks of life, surviving and growing by swapping phosphorus for arsenic in its DNA and cell membranes.

Biologists consider these six elements as necessary for life: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.

Arsenic is similar to phosphorus but is typically poisonous to living organisms.

The original study needed to be confirmed in order to be considered a true discovery, and two separate teams found that indeed, the bacterium needed some phosphate to survive, and could not fully substitute arsenic to live.

NASA has conducted numerous probes at eastern California's Mono Lake, an unusually salty body of water with high arsenic and mineral levels, as it is likely to reflect conditions under which early life evolved on Earth, or perhaps Mars.

While Wolfe-Simon and colleagues acknowledged that there were very low levels of phosphate within their study samples, they concluded that this was a level of contamination that was insufficient to permit GFAJ to grow.

Two separate Science articles "now reveal that, in fact, her medium did contain enough phosphate contamination to support GFAJ-1's growth," said a statement by the magazine issued late Sunday.

One paper was written by Marshall Louis Reaves and colleagues at Princeton University, Rosemary Redfield at the University of British Columbia, and Leonid Kruglyak of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-scientists-nasa-arsenic-life-untrue.html

Should we eat what science put us on the plate ? but we do , for the sake to look intellectual.

 

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I think people eat all kinds of intellectual food, and scientists need a diet saturated in evidence, reasoning and methodology.

I haven't read the rationale behind the study, but certainly it's a question of sufficient interest (e.g., the ADP/ATP cycle or metabolism in general) so I can understand the motivation for it.

It seems to me that the study was warranted. From this page:

So it makes sense to investigate the Mono Lake scenario. How or why they got it wrong isn't clear to me, but certainly this isn't the first faux pas revealed after publishing and it won't be the last.

So what has got you riled up about "bs" and "eating what science has put on the plate"? So far science seems be batting a near perfect 1.000, don't you think?

 

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Look, you dictator, I made my livelihood in science I worked in research for over 35 years , you are probably ....... Never mind you are not wort to spend mine time on you .
Go send e-male to ban me .

 

If a big institution publishes that is gospel, even it smells like sh..t, and most of the intellectual " me to " will bow.

 

Pffft. I don’t believe that for a second. You demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of the scientific method with just about every reactionary anti-science post you make.

Of course not, and scientists don’t.

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If anything, this episode nicely demonstrates that the scientific method works, and works well. A claim was made, the information was made public for others to reproduce, others tried to reproduce it, and in so doing the claim was found to be inaccurate.

Beautiful science all round.

You are the one trying to look intellectual, and failing.

 

just cause it uses arsenic, does not mean it no longer uses phosphorous

 

Have you read the original article published 2010, and the position Nasa have taken .
I do not criticize science , science parse is not human .Science is a process of study. My point is the institution that markets science.
NASA or others. They make big hoopla to get funded. And from time to time they sell us a plate of BS
The same time you or others to get funded you might sell a plate of BS.
In you case probable you have to write a proposal something related to health , It my be realistic or not , but if it something novel, changes are you will sell it , even you know it might BS.
But science ( study parse ) is beautiful, I don't deny it.
Did NASA retrieved the publication ? It was a very interesting subject . Then here come others to explore the topic. Not because to verify the work of NASA , but to get funding from other institution ( " me to ")
Here comes the scientific method. Not by planing, but by people trying to get on the band wagon, and if it a flap. Then we say scientific method is working.

 

arauca

The scientific method is a wonderful thing, and it was other scientists, using the SM, that showed the original claims to be untrue. You obviously have never studied or understood what the SM entails, despite your bull shit claims.

Grumpy

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Based on you statement you have not read my reply to Hercules R.

What was the motivation to check the work from NASA, who would pay for the work ? if it is not a company or other profit making organization that would go on the band wagon .

I don't think that you don't live in the real world .
How much do you think it would cost to very the work from NASA. Perhaps you are a philanthropist.

 

Besides arsenic and phosphate another set of potential substitutions, which could be partially supported, by life, are lithium ions for sodium ions and rubidium ions for potassium ions.

Relative to water and hydrogen bonding, sodium ions bond tighter to water than water does to itself, while potassium ions bond less tight to water than water does to itself. This subtle difference in aqueous interaction is why sodium ends up outside the cell and potassium accumulates within. The cell could not reverse these permanently, and function. Although neurons will tweak back and forth to alter internal equilibria.

Relative to water lithium ions bind even tighter to water than sodium ions, while rubidium ions tight weaker to water than potassium ions. These substitutions would extend the range of aqueous equilibrium on both sides of cells membranes.

http://www.dcnutrition.com/Minerals/detail.cfm?RecordNumber=49

 

arauca

I read it, it is absolute bull.

Drug companies realize the profit potential of "extremophiles" and unique lifeforms, that's why they fund research of this type, even though 99%+ of the things being researched have no profitable possibilities(though you never know which ones will). And science is not a for profit exercise. Just finding such unique lifeforms will bring droves of university scientists to see if the finding holds up and to investigate the possible uses and insights they give us on the diversity of life. There are plenty of reasons(outside of profit)that drive research, some of it leads to profits(economic or personal), that's why we fund it as a society.

I'm not real impressed by what you think, going by what you say it is you who live in woo-woo land, you certainly don't know a dang thing about how science works(as others have already pointed out).

Grumpy

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Why did they carefully checked the claim , what was the motivation ? was it not economy oriented?
Please could you explain the text book example

 

arauca

Because that is what scientist do. It's their job. The second best thing for a scientist is proving another scientists claims are false. The first is having their own work supported by other scientists.

Grumpy

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You must be a teacher of High school , you don't understand business . Do you know why patent are issued ? Let me fill you, we steel ideas. Much research taken place in the industry is not published is kept inside , things with no potential for marketing are published . When government publishes , the industry that see a potential for a product , it checks if it can duplicate the finding . It is not for strictly for scientific reason, but for business.

 

Right, although there was a question about that before the study. I think it's resolved now, at least for this species.

It's the ability of arsenic to enter into the phosphorous reactions that makes it so toxic. It will interfere with the ADP/ATP cycle and shut down the energy supply. If it had an adaptation that allowed for complete substitution, then that would be a big find.

I didn't get arauca's point, that NASA was wasting money or feeding the public BS. It seemed a worthy project to fund. So what if it the question was negated? Knowledge is the gainer either way.

 

I don't share that opinion. I don't understand exactly what you're saying, either. The facts, as I understand them, are:

(1) bacteria were surviving in the toxic arsenic environment
(2) a few species are known to have this ability
(3) this species was relatively unknown
(4) a study was undertaken to determine how it was surviving and/or exploiting arsenic
(5) a central question is what happens to the ADP/NADP cycle when As is present, as it normally interferes
(6) an earlier report set the expectation that a breakthrough discovery had been made
(7) a later report retracted that

Only a person who had invested in the expectation would come out of it feeling betrayed. I don't think very many people even remembered this story until you brought it up.

If you expect all investigations to be picture perfect, then read sci-fi. The rest of the world sees it the other way around, that science involves 99% trial and error and the other 1% are Einsteins who get it right the first time. Or, (as Edison put it): "99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration".

So what if someone at NASA broke a sweat? It was a tiny project, hardly anything to hang on the agency as a whole, or science at large.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. The world will continue to look to NASA for its unparalleled achievements in science, most of which no person here could touch with a ten foot pole.

Not even you, Arauca, not without that objectivity that keeps the balance sheet clean.

 

His point is easy to get (in my opinion). He's just like another nut in literature that went lilting at windmills. Arauca envisions himself as some sort of David who has found a stone to throw at the big, bad Goliath outfit that he thinks is wasting public money <yawn>