Genome of Controversial Arsenic Bacterium Sequenced 56
Med-trump writes "One year ago a media controversy was ignited when Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues held a press conference to announce the discovery of a bacterium that not only survived high levels of arsenic in its environment but also seemed to use that element in its DNA. Last week, the genome of the bacterium, known as GFAJ-1, which gets its name from the acronym for 'Give Felisa a Job.' (No joke!), was posted in Genbank, the public repository of DNA sequences for all who care to take a look. But it doesn't settle the debate over whether arsenic is used in DNA."
Re:Shouldn't it be fairly simple to determine that (Score:5, Insightful)
They know that this bacteria lives in an environment of Arsenic and may use it in its cell process. So any Spectrometric study will show Arsenic as contamination. Even if you clean up for that, there might be bits of Arsenic stuck in the DNA, but which do not do anything. I believe what they are trying to do is to see if Arsenic is a "functional" part of DNA. ie would the DNA without Arsenic be the same as arsenic without it.
Re:Shouldn't it be fairly simple to determine that (Score:4, Insightful)
Two words: Mass Spectrometry [...] It seems sort of ridiculous that there is a debate over it.
OMG, how is it they never thought of this?! /sarcasm
Why is it the stupider someone is, the most certain they are other people are overlooking "the obvious"? I can understand not knowing the details of why a particular idea wouldn't work, but how oblivious to your own ignorance do you have to be to figure that when the experts aren't using a particular idea, it can't be there are reasons it won't work that you aren't aware of, and rather you instead come to the conclusion that the experts understand their own field less well than you do based on what you learned "Back in High School"? The mind boggles...
Re:Well, she got the job. (Score:2, Insightful)
Please don't hold it against LBL - most of the people I've spoken to here think the paper was bullshit. I'm not sure what Tainer was thinking; his lab normally does crystallography and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), which rarely stray into controversial territory. We do have the necessary equipment to verify her claims, however, if that's possible. I'm just not looking forward to the inevitable public reaction if she holds another hand-waving press conference; the DOE doesn't need that kind of publicity.
- a Berkeley Lab scientist
Re:Shouldn't it be fairly simple to determine that (Score:5, Insightful)
The counterpoint of this is that if *everyone* assumed someone smarter than them was already "on it", then the forward progress of our society would grind to a halt.
Calling someone out on it is counter productive because it discourages asking questions, thus making you simply a troll.
Science is all about asking questions. In fact I learned something because of their question. It is something that had I thought about it I likely could have come up with the answer, but having it elucidated for me was helpful, and that was about not being able to tell (and ways you could possibly tell) whether the arsenic was merely sticking to the DNA strand, or if it was actually in place of the phosphorous.
Remember the greatest discoveries are not usually preceded by "eureka!", but rahter "hmmm... that's funny".
-nB
Re:Of course it isn't a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
Of they could not be stupid and say "caused by an SHH Mutation".
Re:Well, she got the job. (Score:4, Insightful)
The criticism of Dr. Wolfe-Simon has largely focused on the publicity surrounding the paper. The paper itself has problems but in and of themselves these would not reflect too badly on Dr. Wolfe-Simon, because the conclusions as stated in the paper are not too extreme and are supported by the evidence in the paper, such as it is.
However, she and her lab orchestrated a rather extreme degree of publicity for the paper, even though it was likely unwarranted based on the quality of the results, with much of it focusing on what a great scientist she was and how groundbreaking these findings were. Considering that the findings are widely disputed and possibly false, which is sort of the opposite of good and groundbreaking science, this rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
Re:Well, she got the job. (Score:3, Insightful)
Same AC here.
I should elaborate: Sometimes a result that is disputed and possibly false ends up becoming good and groundbreaking science. However, this will only be the case after it has been confirmed independently and the disputed issues addressed. Publicizing it immediately, before that process occurs, as though this uncertain and doubtful piece of science is the gospel truth, is irresponsible.