Scientists poke holes in NASA's arsenic-eating microbe discovery

Scientists poke holes in NASA's arsenic-eating microbe discovery

news.yaho o.com

When NASA announced the discovery of an arsenic-eating microbe in a California lake last week, the agency hailed it as a suggestion that life as we know it, well, isn't life as we know it.

But then other scientists began digging into the paper outlining NASA's research and findings, and they're now charging that the research behind it is flawed.
"I was outraged at how bad the science was," University of British Columbia microbiology professor Rosie Redfield told Slate's Carl Zimmer. Redfield also posted a scathing critique of the report on her blog.

(visit the link for the full news article)


rrresearch.blogspot.com

cant belive this ....as stated in the article i think it is a case of NASA may be so desperate for a positive story that they didn't look for any serious advice from DNA or even microbiology people,
shocking bad science...or a case of hypeing up alien life forms ??

seems like recently NASA has been having a bad time of it regards the press , 2 days ago they had pc`s with secure data left on them even after they had been supposedly cleaned.



snoopyuk

news.yaho o.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I have been waiting for this to come along. I knew it was just a matter of time.

I tend to agree with the questioning of the findings.

F&S. Thanks for putting it up.

Nice,

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. I hesitate to blame the reviewers, as their objections are likely to have been overruled by Science's editors in their eagerness to score such a high-impact publication.

rrresearch.blogspot.com...
Makes one wonder what the real agenda is?

reply to post by anon72


you are welcome.
cant believe that even after being here since the older ATS board, this is my first time starting a Breaking News thread.

snoopyuk

Thats ok, they are just preparing us for all the aliens....

Good post,

* When I saw the announcements live, about the teams findings, it seemed rather played up. As if this whole event was a part of the script. A schedule of events to be played out according to a plan with a timetable.*

......................I'm sorry, was I typing out loud again.

all I hear about on here is how the government is trying to keep secret the existance of aliens, and now they are also trying to fabricate their (possible) existance?

some of you, and you know who you are, need to quit stradling the fence.

LOL.

it''s not life.. it was never life.. there may be microbes from water/ice from meteorites but there is no intelligent life out there.. anywheres.. know how i know?..

there isn't any intelligent life even here.

Originally posted by CanadianDream420
LOL.

it''s not life.. it was never life.. there may be microbes from water/ice from meteorites but there is no intelligent life out there.. anywheres.. know how i know?..

there isn't any intelligent life even here.

hey that's pretty funny Screech. Take another toke for me.

But a microbe is life and no one is talking about fictious, walking, talking aliens here

Perhaps NASA is desperate to get more funds. And what better way then to claim, based on their findings, that the chances of finding alien life, have dramaticly increased. As I understand it, NASA needs more cash.

NASA is a scam. It is nothing more than an American corporation with a vast monopoly on humanity's space exploration. I feel as if they are tasked with hindering us with stupid findings like this.

The Soviets launched a satellite into space in the early 50s. Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space soon after. Then apparently the Americans went to the moon. Then afterwards, NOTHING. We have achieved NOTHING significant in 30-40 years of NASA.

We should be colonizing space by now, expanding our horizons, technology and understanding of life. Instead NASA is funded with massive amounts of money to "discover" microbes in an ice meteorite (on Earth, right? So any of the 6.8billion of us could have found it just as well). What a useless organization.

I think it's time for a UN space program. Fund the Russians into building a better space program because they actually know what they are doing, unlike the Americans who fund billions of dollars into spy satellites and space weapons while toying with the ideas of moon colonization decades in the future.

reply to post by snoopyuk


thanks

"I was outraged at how bad the science was,"

Someone has finally told the truth about the recent trashing of science that has become the norm.

reply to post by CanadianDream420


Nice one ...CanadianDream

made me laugh anyway......

snoopyuk

ok folks here is the linky to the thread about the NASA computers

www.abovetopsecret.com...


snoopyuk

Author of Controversial Arsenic Paper Speaks

A firestorm has erupted over the online publication in Science of the discovery of bacteria that use arsenic instead of phosphorus in their DNA. In response, the paper’s lead author, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, based at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, has put a statement on her Web site:

www.ironlisa.com...
news.sciencemag.org...

Originally posted by Electric Crown
all I hear about on here is how the government is trying to keep secret the existance of aliens, and now they are also trying to fabricate their (possible) existance?

some of you, and you know who you are, need to quit stradling the fence.

This has absolutely 0 (zero) to do with alien life. Zero. Nothing. None. Not one tiny bit. I'm not sure how many scientists have to stress this over and over for the lay-person to finally get it through their heads.

Yes, the science in the paper is a bit sloppy and it's missing essential controls. But, contrary to what you all and the media is leading you all to believe, these people never once said they discovered anything of the like. All they ever said, publicly, was that the bacteria can and does swap arsenic in place of phosphorus in a phosphate depleted environment. That's it. That's the title of the paper and it's the only assumption they make throughout the whole thing.

That being said, they are two-three more experiments away from discovering exactly what you all want to hear (they just need funding, which seems cliche, but that's why people put out fast track publications anyway. This isn't the first time a paper has been fast tracked when it should've been returned for revision and it won't be the last I promise you.)

I'm one of your "fence straddling" governmental molecular biologists, I guess.

But NASA gets posted on the net with videos and ATS postings by just
plain posters with nothing to say except attack topical posters that go
against NASA.
The net conspiracy agendas are a new source of jobs like medical billing
and a few others that some might be able to fill in.
I think ever since 911 was questioned on the net the counter forces had to
attack with even more perhaps like Lunar Landings and such to provide
a chaos cover for space aliens or anything they deem sacred to their
existence.

Alien Microbes now are just another supporting myth like ancient astronauts
made by the illuminati to bend our mind in the direction they want.
ED:New field recruits and hard times resulting from being myth balled for years
gave up and joined myth makers.

reply to post by snoopyuk


Good find OP! S&F.

NASA knew from the start this was flawed.

In the breaking news article....

Steven Benner, an astrobiologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, told me he was unconvinced. He was invited to Washington today to lay out the skeptical view during a much-hyped news conference at NASA Headquarters. "I'm the guy they bring in to throw the wet blanket over all the enthusiasm," he joked.

He was impressed by the finding that bacteria could get by with so little phosphorus and so much arsenic, but he questioned the conclusion that the arsenic was truly taking the place of phosphorus. Benner explained that chemists have long been familiar with the properties of arsenate compounds. "We know, for example, that they fall apart in water quickly," he said. "Those structures are not going to survive in water."

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Makes one wonder about the real agenda of NASA.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur So if anyone really watched and paid attention to the announcement, the opposing viewpoint was already presented at the time of the announcement. Some people seem to overlook that fact or didn't know the full contents of the announcement.

Oh great :shk: Now you NASA huggers are saying NASA has built in fail insurance... Why go to all the fuss of making a big deal of an upcoming major release... let the media and us hype it up, only to release stuff they are not even sure of?

Sounds like the time Levine found liquid water on Mars till internet bloggers pointed out the pic was on a HILL

Or those announcements of 100% chance of life on Gliese581G only to tell us they are not sure the planet is really there

WHY are they still in business?



NASA’s Mono Lake Arsenic Microbes Not Quite As Advertized

After several microbiologists analyzed the NASA paper and its methodology, they concluded that laboratory errors caused NASA scientists to think the microbes did not use phosphorus.

In fact, says Harvard microbiologist Alex Bradley, the NASA scientists unknowingly demonstrated the flaws in their own experiment. They immersed the DNA in water as they analyzed it, he points out. Arsenic compounds fall apart quickly in water, so if it really was in the microbe’s genes, it should have broken into fragments, Bradley wrote Sunday in a guest post on the blog We, Beasties. But the DNA remained in large chunks—presumably because it was made of durable phosphate. Bradley got his Ph.D. under MIT professor Roger Summons, who co-authored the 2007 weird-life report. Summons backs his former student’s critique.

But how could the bacteria be using phosphate when they weren’t getting any in the lab? That was the point of the experiment, after all. It turns out the NASA scientists were feeding the bacteria salts which they freely admit were contaminated with a tiny amount of phosphate. It’s possible, the critics argue, that the bacteria eked out a living on that scarce supply. As Bradley notes, the Sargasso Sea supports plenty of microbes while containing 300 times less phosphate than was present in the lab cultures.

tucsoncitizen.com...

Nasa study announcing discovery of bacteria that lived on arsenic dismissed as 'flim flam' by scientists

It was hailed as a discovery that would have massive implications for the search for life on other planets. But Nasa’s announcement that it discovered a form of bacteria in a Californian lake that could survive on arsenic has come in for serious criticism from top scientists. In a hugely-anticipated press conference last week, Nasa scientists said they had discovered a form of 'weird life' that was able to thrive on arsenic - and even incorporate it into their DNA.

But scientists who have read the research paper on which the announcement was based have claimed that the science that led to the 'discovery' contained some serious flaws.

Rosie Redfield, a microbiology professor at the University of British Columbia, says she is ‘outraged at how bad the science was’.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

NASA = NEED ANOTHER SPACE AGENCY