NASA has become the supermarket tabloid of science.
Posted on 12/17/2010 5:41:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Amid a flurry of criticism, a NASA-funded team on Thursday backed off the more extravagant, textbook-changing claims they'd made about a bacterium that had allegedly substituted arsenic for phosphorus in its DNA.
The original announcement, made at a NASA news conference Dec. 2, seemed to break a cardinal rule of biology that all organisms need some phosphorus to survive. NASA researchers claimed to have discovered an exotic organism in California's Mono Lake that lived instead on arsenic, thus broadening the types of life that may exist in the universe.
The news made headlines worldwide including a New York Times story that ran in The Inquirer on Dec. 3.
On Thursday, the researchers issued a more modest claim. Instead of saying the microbes had completely substituted arsenic for phosphorus, a new statement says the arsenic replaced "a small percentage" of the phosphorus.
A number of biologists say they'll be surprised if even this stands the test of time.
The claims "do not follow from their results," said Simon Silver, a University of Illinois microbiologist who specializes in heavy-metal resistance in bacteria. "This conclusion is not merited from what they did and measured and I think it most likely is a mistake and should never have been claimed or published."
The findings were published in the journal Science, which also issued the researchers' latest statement. Most of its 16 pages were responses to critics......
NASA reinforced this notion with an animated graphic of a DNA molecule, in which little orange balls representing phosphorus magically disappeared and were all replaced by green balls representing arsenic.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
May she drive her Pris off into the sunset
.
NASA has become the supermarket tabloid of science.
Sorry, read that as “clam” and wondered why NASA was selling clams.
That looks vaguely vulgar.........;^)
She got prissy and threw a hussy fit. Or vice versa.
“: )
My perceptions exactly.
Never mind the fact that she knew what she wanted to find and whala...she found it.
I thought the whole announcement was reminiscent of the Cold Fusion debacle.
President Barack Obama and Office of Science and technology Policy Director John P. Holdren [White House Science ‘Czar’ Tells Students: U.S. Can’t Expect to Be Number One in Science and Technology Forever]
He's currently all wrapped up in developing gold eating bacteria that could reduce the use of cyanide to extract particles from ore.
You'd better believe he got excited with this one ~ he's probably got one just like it burbling away in a petri dish somewhere, and this is screwing up his application for a patent!
He's setting the groundwork for what he hopes is a successful challenge in behalf of HIS BUGS.
In search of grants and self they have failed to follow elemental scientific standards of proof.
The global warming scam is, perhaps, the most flagrant but this story also points out their lack of professional discipline.
Pitzer College Science, Technology, and Society Major: Science, Technology, and Society (STS) is an interdisciplinary field that studies: (1) the conditions under which the production, distribution, and utilization of scientific knowledge and technological systems occur, and (2) the consequences of these activities upon different groups of people.
At Green Mountain College we believe that a liberal arts education ought to respond to the most pressing problems of the times. The effects of a globalizing economy, rapid population growth, changing land use patterns and surging technological development are transforming almost every profession and creating complex social, economic and ecological problems.
Junk science does not need to be correct.
IOW... nasa “research scientists” fail again.
LLS
The global warming scam and search for extra-terrestrial life are both examples of scientists reaching a conclusion first, based on social exigencies, then using taxpayer funding to prove the claim.
Is that the same Simon “Sticks” Silver who was the drummer in the band Dio?
;-)
*The global warming scam is, perhaps, the most flagrant but this story also points out their lack of professional discipline.*
Somewhere I saw polls for how much people respect and/or believe scientists over a span of about 50 years and it dropped dramatically when they started spewing out the AGW nonsense.
I’m sure the “consensus” lie did a lot of damage.
With all the goofy misinformation coming out of NASA it makes you wonder whether they could duplicate a trip to the moon again.
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