Controversial 'Arsenic Life' Paper Retracted After 15 Years (nature.com) 21
"So far, all lifeforms on Earth have a phosphorous-based chemistry, particularly as the backbone of DNA," writes longtime Slashdot reader bshell. "In 2010, a paper was published in Science claiming that arsenic-based bacteria were living in a California lake (in place of phosphorous). That paper was finally retracted by the journal Science the other day." From a report: : Some scientists are celebrating the move, but the paper's authors disagree with it -- saying that they stand by their data and that a retraction is not merited. In Science's retraction statement, editor-in-chief Holden Thorp says that the journal did not retract the paper when critics published take-downs of the work because, back then, it mostly reserved retractions for cases of misconduct, and "there was no deliberate fraud or misconduct on the part of the authors" of the arsenic-life paper. But since then, Science's criteria for retracting papers have expanded, he writes, and "if the editors determine that a paper's reported experiments do not support its key conclusions," as is the case for this paper, a retraction is now appropriate.
"It's good that it's done," says microbiologist Rosie Redfield, who was a prominent critic of the study after its publication in 2010 and who is now retired from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "Pretty much everybody knows that the work was mistaken, but it's still important to prevent newcomers to the literature from being confused." By contrast, one of the paper's authors, Ariel Anbar, a geochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe, says that there are no mistakes in the paper's data. He says that the data could be interpreted in a number of ways, but "you don't retract because of a dispute about data interpretation." If that's the standard you were to apply, he says, "you'd have to retract half the literature."
"It's good that it's done," says microbiologist Rosie Redfield, who was a prominent critic of the study after its publication in 2010 and who is now retired from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "Pretty much everybody knows that the work was mistaken, but it's still important to prevent newcomers to the literature from being confused." By contrast, one of the paper's authors, Ariel Anbar, a geochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe, says that there are no mistakes in the paper's data. He says that the data could be interpreted in a number of ways, but "you don't retract because of a dispute about data interpretation." If that's the standard you were to apply, he says, "you'd have to retract half the literature."
Life with Old Lace (Score:3)
It was just missing the proper title. Resubmit.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn. You beat me to it !
Phosphorus-based life forms (Score:3)
Of course all life on Earth is "carbon based". So what is all this "phosphorus-based" nonsense about.
Actually, It's a reference to the structure of DNA itself, which is sequence of nucleotides linked by sugar-phosphate bonds:
https://www.genome.gov/genetic... [genome.gov].
So replacing the little Ps with arsenic, but research now shows that life cannot exist without the phosphate bonds.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Phosphorus-based life forms (Score:2)
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Re: Phosphorus-based life forms (Score:2)
Other scientists said from the beginning, this is very unlikely because arsenic bonds are too weak when dissolved in water
Life of the author (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Extraordinary claims (Score:3)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Their extraordinary claim was that somehow known chemistry was wrong. Their extraordinary evidence was 'belief', because the flaws in their experiment prevented any rational conclusion.
Retraction was the correct move.
re: arsenic in Earth life forms (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: arsenic in Earth life forms (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, researching this is fine. The paper is not being retracted because of the topic, but because of the quality of the paper.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, because Arsenic (As) is directly below Phosphate (P) on the table.
The table is very useful for predicting chemical properties because a lot of things rollow - as you go down the table, the number of electrons in the valence shell stay the same, so many of the same chemical bonds can take place.
It's why Sodium-Ion batteries are a thing because they behave just like the lithium ions in a Lithium-Ion battery. Or why the Radium Girls lost all their teeth and had significantly weaker bones - because t
Someone poisoned the paper (Score:2)
with arsenic.
Retraction types (Score:3)
Journals should have (at least) two forms of retraction. One type should be a notice stating it was retracted due to consensus indicating the conclusions are baloney. And another for retraction due to consensus indicating deliberate falsification of results.
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Also, retraction for political reasons.
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Conclusions are usually baloney. So much so that lots of journals discourage even having them.
Typically retracted papers do come with a notice stating why they were retracted.
Censorship (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds like the paper was retracted because people disagree with its conclusions. I am not sure how that is different than any other censorship. There once was a theory that the solution would be to write a paper disputing the conclusions. Now we expect authorities to censor it so no one is "confused" by incorrect information.
That's not how I understand it. It's because their own data, their own evidence does not support their conclusions. This was the reason the paper was retracted. You don't want to publish papers that show how to do science the wrong way.
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It's because their own data, their own evidence does not support their conclusions.
That is an argument to be made, not a reason to obliterate both the evidence and the conclusions.
Bacteria or Archaea? (Score:2)
This organism is probably an Archaean, which means that it's not a Bacterium.
Or it's an alien, probably left on Earth after some alien starship visited us in the past. Anyway, I should dig out and reread my old Sci-fi books about silicium-based (instead of carbon) or fluorine-based (instead of oxygen) alien biologies. BRB.