Scientist in a Strange Land

An excellent article to read! Felisa Wolfe-Simon appears to be an awesome scientist and a victim of politics from different directions.

"And it would give Mono Lake, rather than Mars or one of Jupiter's moons, the distinction of being the first place in our solar system where 'alien' life was discovered."

Would it not have to be extraterrestrial in order for it to be alien? lol j/k

'Alien' can refer to anything unfamiliar; like the genetic make up of arsenic bacteria vs phosphorous.

"She told me she had been misquoted and misunderstood by both her scientific peers and reporters who focused heavily on the doubts raised about her work, while disregarding its strengths."

Most people tend to shun any new ideas that upsets the old order because of dogma and egotism. People like being right, and are afraid of the type of change that shakes the foundation of all the truths they hold onto.

I wonder how the investigation into the readings of the FTL neutrinos is going.

i agree, thanks a lot politics, you've captured another victim of the great society

@barclay109,

"victim of the great society"?

Care to elaborate on that one? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society)

---

"Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill.
Tell them firmly:
I am not paid to listen to this drivel.
You are a terminal boob." - William S. Burroughs

"Maybe she should go into marketing"

I died a little when I read that. I've shared the same thought many times, though.

Einstein, Kepler, Tesla, Fermi, Newton and Curie could all rise from the grave tomorrow and get back into research, and I doubt they'd be any richer than most bankers, traders or corporate lawyers. Money doesn't lead to happiness, I know... being rich isn't the ultimate goal, I know... but it seems unjust that scientists performing fundamental research get such a meager reward for unraveling the mysteries of our world. Felisa Wolfe-Simon, whether her discovery turns out to be true or not, has contributed more to humanity than the ShamWow or the numerous Apple-Samsung court cases ever will. Still, she's left wondering whether her distant admirer shouldn't just save herself the trouble and study marketing instead of science.

"Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us." - Henri Matisse (apparently)

The data in the original Science article are very poor or irrelevant to the points that the authors wish to establish. Even worse, the data are fundamentally misrepresented in the text of the article. There is practically no one in the scientific community who sees anything worthwhile in the article. The inability of the authors of the article to accept the validity of the numerous criticisms is evidence for their inadequacy as scientists. The media has also demonstrated its incredible naivete. Its unwillingness to perform a self-examination about how it could be so easily taken in by such a confidence trick is disturbing.

I did a search of Felisa Wolfe-Simon on the internet. There seems to be a problem of her and her pears representing themselves, but at the same time there exist some validity to what she says. So maybe a new discovery of a new life, microbe arsenic life form has been discovered. It just needs further verification from another completely separate scientific source. So it’s kind of confusing and unverified; no time to make a party yet it seems or even publishes an article about it too.

@suggestivesimon

Other than the fact that science is much harder than any other academic pursuit, the fact that it's far less financially rewarding is what drives people to make the other decision. Scientist make the major discoveries that are not realized until several years after the fact. For this, present emphasis on importance does not rest with scientists' advocacy on the possibilities that could be, but on the engineers' advocacy of what's possible (and affordable) now.

Good article, I think the most important point here is the following: "No matter how the peer-review process is amended, the arsenic-life affair laid bare the challenges of scientific discourse in a new media age. The productive collision of ideas and personalities and opinions has long been refereed and filtered by science journals. If that process has made science seem, from a distance, civilized and rational, it has also made it slow and undemocratic."

Technology allows us to process information quicker than ever before. Review through the internet certainly is an interesting idea. The only hurdle is how to ensure that opinions in the discussion is constructive and filter out ones that are not. Unfortunately, the need to filter seems to be counteracting the free-discussion and openness of this approach.

In the end, the public needs to be more aware and educated in the sciences to be able to think critically, instead of accepting/speculating what they are told through the media. Science is never ending, ever improving. And understanding that any new discoveries needs to be tested and reconfirmed by a large number of experiments before it may be widely accepted will be beneficial to us in the long run.

KH Ching

This is academia at its best. Any new idea in any subject is met with resentment, terror, and then complete hostility. The only thing that is surprising is how they have drug this out into the open to become water cooler conversations. All I can say to that is it really must scare the piss out of people who have staked their professional reputations on life only being what we have always thought it to be.

@SD...many of her critics have re-examined their criticism and now have a different opinion than yours, or are you just trolling...funny how the critics used the internet and media to criticise her for using the internet and media to communicate her hypothosis, these critics should be ashamed of themselves and hopefully she has learned from her mistake (it appears she has) and that her carreer does not suffer permanent damage, to bad this wasn't handled like the CERN neutrino findings, cheers

@pheonix1012

I understand that the root of the problem is that it's hard to monetize a discovery when it's only used in an application years later. Plus, there is no mechanism in our current legal framework to give credit to a scientist's part in product development. There are only patents, but you can't patent a discovery related to fundamental science. And rightly so... (don't get me started on gene patents :-\)

Still, the US has wholeheartedly and comprehensively embraced capitalism. In that specific context, it seems that scientists performing fundamental research are getting the shaft. From the birth of a consumer product to its death, everyone is getting a piece of the pie: engineering, manufacturing, testing, management, marketing, publicity, legal, finance, distribution, retail,... but the scientist who originally discovered the fundamental principle that allows the product to exist is left writing countless grant applications to keep his/her lab running.

Anyhow. I realize that this isn't an easy problem to solve. I just find the current situation ... lacking.

"If confirmed, scientists said, the discovery would mean that this high mountain lake hosts a form of life distinct from all others known on Earth. [...] And it would give Mono Lake [...] the distinction of being the first place in our solar system where “alien” life was discovered."

I don't know which "scientists" you consulted for that piece of hyperbole, but they're flat wrong. Not even Felisa Wolfe-Simon would make such an outrageous statement, I'd hope.

No, IF her results are correct (and that's still a big IF), all it would show is that some otherwise fairly ordinary bacteria have a very interesting trick up their sleeves that we hadn't seen (or even thought possible) before. And this would have consequences for the range of environments we might be able to find "life as we know it" in the universe (hence the NASA exobiology link).

But there's absolutely nothing "alien" or "distinct from all others forms of life known on Earth" about Halomonas GFAJ-1. Heck, it's not all that different from good ol' E. coli, for that matter.

I wish Felisa Wolfe-Simon well and I hope her career continues prosperously! ;)

Nice article! Would like more like this from POPSCI.

Always thought the overreaction to her findings were way out of proportions. Sounded like a bunch of jaded/disgruntled scientists though.

I'd like to know one way or the other whether what was claimed is actually happening and wasn't just a false observation based on our lack of being able to actually observe something so small.

@Patrikd,

The point of the discovery is that it's fundamentally changed the chemical composition necessary for what we call "life".

This means we could expect to find "life" in places we thought it might be impossible before.

If GFAJ-1 can live off of arsenic instead of phosphorous, then perhaps other life-forms can as well. That's why it's special.

---

"Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill.
Tell them firmly:
I am not paid to listen to this drivel.
You are a terminal boob." - William S. Burroughs

Those who control the system have set up peer review to stop anything from upsetting the status quo. Like Michael Crichton once famously said:

Consensus science is not science it is politics.

Seems like we have another scientists who has fallen victim to a insidious system.

This was one of the best science writing articles I've seen in a long time. Thanks for doing her story justice.

I look forward to a follow up story on this, particularly if the assertion that arsenic can and is working in DNA. I'm rather surprised this article came out before that conclusion was actually able to garner more support or whether it was fully refuted. This is one of the few times where I would think science could prove this one way or another in a pretty simple manner. (simple being relative, of course)

Anyone who has gone through a graduate program in the sciences (see the link in my sig) should know that you must anticipate the questions which will be raised by your findings and you must answer those questions yourself first. You must take a hard look at your findings and try your hardest to disprove them yourself before anyone else has a crack at them. The more outrageous the claim you are making, the more heroic the effort you must make to test it yourself before you go public with it. The claim that arsenic can make a stable link in DNA in place of phosphorous goes against all chemical observations of arsenic made for over a hundred years. If I were to want to publish a paper claiming this new and previously unobserved property of arsenic, I would do more to anticipate my critics than this team did.

There are some simple experiments these scientists could have done to disprove their claims, but they did not choose to do them.

Great story and very well presented.

The results of her work will either be duplicated and confirmed or refuted. And either way the analytical techniques developed will benefit future science.

The fact that NASA hyped the story does not excuse the personal attacks.

Fortunately, for her and her team members, their work did not challange AGW.

That would have lead to much more serious and career affecting attacks.

This article points out the biggest problem in science today. It is made up largely of a bunch of pathetic immature egotistical arrogant creatures, whose only concern is being recognized as smarter than their peers.

Great article!! It brings to light a disturbing trend. Recent scientific disagreements have increasingly become filled with personal attacks and venom, much like the political extremism pervasive across the nation. What is this country devolving into? This attitude of "either my way or the highway" is not going to foster any progress. We've become a collection of tribes at war with one another. If we cannot discuss differences of opinion calmly and with civility, focusing only on observable and repeatable data, the outcome will inevitably be based on who ever shouts the loudest gets his way. Not exactly a process to find the truth. To be passionate about the truth is good science, to be passionate about protecting one's own position is narcissism.

The perils of open science, where everyone is an expert and the level of cynicism runs high. In part, the scientific community is to blame, relying as it does on internal sources for a sense of how it is doing, inevitably wrong as it would be for anyone so self-reflexive. In part, scientists have shilled for problematic sponsors like big corporations concerned only with the bottom-line -- for example, Monsanto with its genetic sports that it passes off for food -- or the Defense Department, consuming trillions of tax dollars for demonstrably failed purposes. (Have we won a war since WW2?)

But the bigger problem nowadays is the raging anti-science movement that wants to take societies, not just in the USA but elsewhere, back to the Middle Ages. They would prefer we put our faith (no pun intended) in priests with magic powers and ideologies that require suspending not just scientific process but common sense. Let's all believe in ghosts and divine images on tacos, they say, meanwhile pocketing contributions from followers scared out of their wits by an incomprehensible world made more so by lack of confidence in science.

Who willingly would subject themselves to the wisdom of the mob as too often epitomized by the Internet? But scientists must, because their calling requires findings to be scrutinized and hypotheses tested, the tests themselves first having to pass muster. Wolfe-Simon's just one of many scientists who have two choices, apparently: retreat back into the cloister, speaking only to like minds; or take the offensive and show the anti-science louts for what they are -- at the expense of doing more useful work.

What a dilemma. The rational majority wishes her well.

PS ... And yes, even scientists can be anti-science, anti-new paradigms, when their bread is buttered on the other side. Case in point.

Sounds like all it needed was a 3rd party to confirm the findings (no doubt done by now). Not sure why people choose to jump to slandering someone before even attempting to confirm the evidence scientifically. Its a shame, but luckily the truth is what remains and the slanderers eventually move on to their next victim.

While science must be scrutinized for validity, brutal personal attacks are both unprofessional and a sign of the larger societal problem of the loss of civility.
I hope that the science community will treat my daughter, Felisa, and all scientists, with civility and respect, despite disputes about their research. Jealousy is not an attractive personality trait.
Hats off to Felisa!

Theory doesn't prohibit it, the morphology of arsenic suggests it, and an experiment seems to demonstrate it, so it's proposed that life can be based on an arsenic cycle similar to the phosphorus cycle. Yes, the implications are exciting.

OK, so Felisa got a bit giddy over at NASA. Hey, they were paying the tab, why shouldn't she join the party?

What Wolfe-Simon is experiencing a massive dose of sour grapes. Redfield is a hack and looks like an alien herself. Of course she'd object to this, claiming she's been mis-characterized by the media. It would have been nice if she'd allowed Wolfe-Simon the same.

It's a solid hypothesis and a solid experiment and a solid paper, and the editor of Science doesn't need to make a silly mea culpa.

Wasn't science pretty certain that life couldn't exist in super-hot environments until we found out it could. As with neutrinos, don't blame the observer for reporting something you don't like.

What is there about scientists that cause them to freak out every time someone comes up with a new "discovery?" Science is based on the world we think we understand to exist at any given time and place. The world isn't necessarily consistent in all its forms, and god only knows what "contradictions" lie before us in Space. Or is it simply that ego doesn't like to be up staged? Sadly, there is a significant element that feeds off government contracts based on one's unique place in the sun. That shouldn't need further explanation.

Have we arrived at a point where science is secure in the concept that they have discovered everything to be discovered? One would certainly hope not but the backlash as detailed here sure reeks of something akin to an inquisition.

We don't have to bend or break the rules of science and discovery to accept that we might not be quite as smart as we think we are.

This news is troubling because it does now frame mainstream science in the same gallery where we once found a smothering, church-driven theocracy that behaved the very same way to others... like Galileo.

@redoubt

And, that's whasup.

@ndelaney47

And, THAT'S whasup.

Don't feel bad Felissa Wolfe-Simon;
I feel the same way: www.DoubleBatteryLife.com explains my USA patent electrical/electronic circuit gleans out more than double the normal joules of energy from standard alkaline batteries (flashlight batteries). It should have been my day in the sun too, but instead I get nothing but laughs and skeptisism?
Its super simple, super cheap @ perhaps only 15 cents per circuit board once en masse production is started; can be installed in any alkaline battery operated device.
1. It makes toy trains go twice as far first day , and more on succeeding days
2. Our flashlight searchlight version is so bright you can see the beam at night when you shine it up into the dark night sky
3. Joules tests reveal over 100% MORE joules in alkaline cells when normal users throw them away
4. We can take alkaline batteries out of the trash and run them in our flashglights.
5. Not as good for rechargeables except a niche use for emergency use such as live saving medical, win the race, where the user is not so worried about years of use.
6. I even built a micro-controller circuit that automates the whole process so that it would be transparent to the user (in other words a factory would install the circuit and the users would simply put normal alkalines in as usual but would get at least double the use (Or photos in the case of the digital cameras).
No one believes it except those perhaps 12 people who have seen it working; we use it everyday around the house and even in toy trains to demonstrate to layman that since the laps around the circular train track represent work (WORK = force x distance and F = ma of course). We used to measure amps and volts to calculate the watts output but still no one believed in it.
If anyone wants a good story please humor us and goto the website: WWW.DOUBLEBATTERYLIFE.COM Jeff Davis inventor and patent owner

The Truth Sets You Free ! www.DoubleBatteryLife.com

The science community can be a nasty bunch, it's like a soap-opera. Someone discovers something exciting and instantly becomes a target; just a theory might get jealosy, backstabing, even insult.

I think she's doing excellent work that will help in understanding the future discoveries from and in space. Particularly in meteors and Jupiter's moon, Europa.

NASA, as a science and space exploration agency, should receive more heat. Similar findings were done 2 miles under the ocean, with marine life swiming around sulfur vents...a lot of life (see Aliens Of The Deep). But they didn't seem much interested, why? Oh, maybe because they didn't discover it.

They also have a scientist of their own that, like Felisa, discovered something very interesting; the posibility of alien microbes in a metorite. But they look at him as a half-nut who dreams too big; oh, but he's still working there...hmmm.

Honestly, I don't understand why the fever with Mars and the bigger telescope. You know, Europa seems to be an almost sure bet of having somekind of life under it's ice-cap. So, DAMN! Why not send the best robotic probe that can be designed and clear that up? I don't need to see more stars and more red deserts, I need to see an ocean, and something swimming in it.

Maybe it is alien?
Logic: it we all agree that comets, asteroids, and other debris have at least at one time or the other hit the earth..are not these objects alien to earth? So its not so much of a reach to believe that at least one microbe type might actually be from another solar system or planet (making it alien to normal earth) !

But what if instead of presuming that all events are random, lets pretend for a moment that some of the things might be deliberate, yes a specific object with specific properties or even life forms aimed at (or landed) on earth by higher intelligence life form. Re: viking mars lander introduced to mars objects and perhaps microbes "alien" to mars.
CONSIDER: that if you take all the mass of all the universe ; the earth would be still smaller than the tiniest speck of dust in that whole mass; so it makes sense that there is "other life" out there somewhere (maybe closer than you think). WE MUSTN'T PRESUME THAT ALL LIFE IN ALL THE UNIVERSE REVOLVES AROUND US! (the earth is not flat , nor is the earth the center of our solar system).
Further since; we are enjoying some type of livihood and survival, it would also follow that IFF some of these things were deliberately accomplished, then that would mean that these alleged higher intelligence life forms must be beneficial (friendly) to humans; just food for thought!

The Truth Sets You Free !

We've seen before where people who are multi-talented are met with more skeptisism than those who have focused only on one area. Just because Felissa is good at music doesn't mean she isn't also a good scientist !

The Truth Sets You Free !

What about those microbes feeding on arsenic compound which have been known already to be found on earth? Why she has to think what she found is something from outside the earth?

Don't go into Marketing. That field really stinks! I've worked alongside many people with Marketing degree, and their careers aren't going anywhere.

NASA was created to be a dog-and-pony show. Science gets tacked on as a bonus, but NASA's reason to exist is to showcase the President's technological power. That's why NASA's missions change like the drapes in the White House. You don't see these kind of theatrics from the NIH or even the NSF, which have the same budget dependence as does NASA. My mom has worked in several research labs, none of which has ever called a press conference. NASA gets more limelight than any science agency I've ever seen.

NASA has staked its future on the human desire to find ET life. Maybe that's what it takes to get funding, but I want to know about Mars because I think it is an interesting place on its own, not because I expect to find life there. I like knowing things. Maybe that's why I'd be just as happy if NASA stuck with putting men on Moon? I think that sending astronauts 6 months out into deep space is far beyond our technological will and ability to fund at sufficient levels. We need more than PR stunts; we need a sustainable plan.

some people think different,and we can`t please everybody,there also so many alien in my country,immigration chasing them( illegal alien) hehehe.I am biologist too.

The discovery of an unknown microbe is great. I think that in other stars other microbes exist and they live on differenet materials like sulfur for example.
dordor77@netvision.net.il

It is evident that intellectual (and by derivation, institutional) snobbery are alive and well in the PopSci comment community. What amazes me is how many of those who choose to comment, based on their statements, seem unable to read and comprehend the article. They are nearly as bad as the perpetrators of the extremely uncivil discourse this whole issue has spawned, and for which these intellectually bankrupt individuals deserve shunning by their fellows.

Typically the most profound new truths are eventually proven to be simple old truths that were initially met with skepticism. Alien intelligence discovered on earth? (Phoenix1012?) Since the research papers from CERN, I must conclude that this perceived version of a dimensional reality is inconsistent with the mathematical models of actual quantitative time space, proportional to the square of the mass of widely distributed y-chromosonic bovine excrement previously identified in the Universe as "Dark Matter". Presuming of course the validity of the relevant postulate that we are, A )Because we think we are. or B) Because someone else thinks we are. C) Because we can't prove with Math that we are not. or D) All of the above. :)
Alex Ingram

Somewhere out in space MAY be a group of Aliens or extraterrestrials whom are astounded at our violence, our ability to starve and kill each other by the millions, yet have the ability to think logically and understand consequence. That in it self " Oh look they've discovered us again! giggle,laugh, snort!',, and most of them are still living in mud huts!." this may represent cosmic irony, or perhaps they are thinking we are a totally new and unbelievable race of creatures. In an infinite Universe "why not?' Ideas like water in space, men flying in or out of space, bio-engineering, atomic bombs etc were all scoffed at as implausible or impossible by reputable experts of their day. It is the human media circus and the posturing of scientific superiority of one fields greater proof over another that acts as a barrier to finding the truth(s). Matter? Anti-Matter? Doesn't-Matter? Your careers are not over folks because of the Media's hoopla. Who really cares if Aliens have extra-testicles or not! (With or without the Arsenic). Just keep them off my Periodic table!
Alex Ingram

Popular Science is supposed to be about the science of the paper- this article would be more appropriate in People mag. The question is-was the science any good, and evidently it was not. Now, most published science papers are not very good. But this 'junior researcher' published a paper that made a historical claim- if she did not expect to start a storm, she was naive as well as inexperienced. Science has always been a field for the thick-skinned and researchers who make huge claims need very thick skin.

Whether the paper was so flawed it should not have been published is not a matter of opinion. The bacteria are obviously growing on the phosphate contaminating the 40mM (!) arsenate being used in the media. I do allege misconduct by the authors. They grossly misrepresent the data in the Supplementary Table 1 in the initial article and the Technical Comments and perform another unacceptable distortion of the statistics (standard deviations) in the Technical Comments.

Who is Rosie Redfield and why does she look so much like a man? I pose a hypothesis, that all women possessing the name "Rosie" are overbearing lesbians, with low self esteem that makes them lash out at anyone of their gender that appears to be happy and successful, they possess a bad case of penis envy that they transpose onto anyone or anything that makes them feel insignificant, overlooked and unfufilled, fueling the urge to interject themselves in the limelight by way of creating controversy. Maybe someone can spend some time researching my hypothesis.

The recent awarding of the Chemistry Nobel to Dan Schectman for a discovery he made almost 30 years ago, and for which he was initially laughed at by prominent scientists, including fellow Nobel-er Linus Pauling, should give all scientists pause when commenting on any new discoveries. A paradigm shift is always hard for the establishment. See Thomas Kuhn on "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". (or check out the Wikipedia article on the topic for a quick and dirty version.)

There's weird stuff out there that isn't yet explainable, folks. Dark matter, dark energy, faster than light neutrinos. Some speculations are wrong, though eventually, the truth will out, as scientists work through the problems. i.e. cold fusion? -- almost certainly wrong, though there are still believers. Lamarck vs. Darwin vs. "Creationism"?; Darwin hands down. Pesky neutrinos, Arsenic in bacterial DNA --- still up for grabs.

Let's not get our undies in a bunch. Einstein once said, in effect, either everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle. Let's hang onto the possibility that we don't know everything yet, and probably never will!

There is an eerie similarity as to what has happened to Elaine DeFreitas, PhD, Judy Mikovitz, PhD, and now Felisa Wolfe-Simon,PhD.

The parallels are intriguing. All 3 are highly accomplished women scientists. All 3 were inadvertently thrust into premature media exposure.

The media and the halo of personalities surrounding each hyped the science resulting in undeserved condemnation from their peers.

The term “Borked” has come into common parlance, but lacks something. To Use “DeFreitas-ed”, as a similar verb is awkward.

You professional word-smiths should create some pithy term for this phenomenon.

Some things are unavoidable. That science has now not only displaced religion, but actually replaced it, there is also a mimicry in behavior; the inquisition.

When one challenges either God or the structure of life, there will always be hell to pay.

I find that, to reject something as "unscientific" or claiming that it must be biased or incorrect because it is different - no matter how many boundaries it pushes - is more or less the same thing as all the racial discrimination we have had in America not one hundred years ago. GFAJ-1 ("Scientist In A Strange Land") is different and pushes the boundaries of life as we know it, yes, but that does not automatically mean that it cannot exist or the research is incorrect. It does mean that we should look into the matter further and then make a virdict. It saddens me that after all these centuries, we have not yet learned to ignore the fact that something is different from the "norm" and move on as a whole.

My theory as to why GFAJ-1 ("Scientist In A Strange Land") can use arsenic rather than phosphorus is that, via evolution and natural selection, GFAJ-1 used what was available - in this case, arsenic. One cell may have mistook arsenic for phosphorus, a common occurence, and managed to use it in the place of phosphorus. Then, this cell may have multiplied, creating a new species than can survive with either aresnic or phosphorus. This is just another example of an organism adapting to its environment, using whatever it can to survive and potentially thrive.

First Let’s Learn What Life And Genes Are:

The DNA and RNA genomes are ORGANISMS evolved by life’s primal ORGANISMS, the RNAs, and so are all cells…

(Extend evolution way down to genes, life’s base ORGANISMS. Culture modifies genetics, not vice versa...)

Pavlov’s Smile: RNAs Are Earth’s Primal Organisms
Culture>genes>addiction (2 July 2009)
http://universe-life.com/2011/09/24/pavlovs-smile/

Why Pavlov smiled in 2008?

Pavlov demonstrated effecting placebo phenomena in multi celled organisms by manipulation of their drives-reactions. Now placebo and imagination phenomena are demonstrated also in Earth’s smallest, base organisms, in the genes and genomes of multi-celled organisms, in our primal 1st stratum and 2nd stratum base organisms.
A very good reason to smile.
Now an interesting chain is exposed to our view, the Genes-Virtual Reality Chain, a most intriguing cultural evolution chain extending from the genesis of our genes to nowadays, throughout life, a virtual reality existence, and by virtual reality phenomena, exploitations and manipulations.

Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com

From “Life Genesis From Aromaticity/H-Bonding”
http://universe-life.com/2011/09/30/earthlife-genesis-from-aromaticityh-bonding/
Natural selection is E (energy) temporarily constrained in an m (mass) format.
Natural selection is a universal ubiquitous trait of ALL mass spin formats, inanimate and animate.
Life began/evolved on Earth with the natural selection of inanimate RNA, then of some RNA nucleotides, then arriving at the ultimate mode of natural selection, self-replication.
Dov

Stupid idea, poor data, abuse of the data--why can't the media get this story right? Why do they continue to propagate the disinformation campaign of Paul Davies and FWS? The Science article never should have been published, because it contains nothing worthwhile. It is not "controversial;" it is simply fraudulent.

Like Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann did with Cold Fusion, Wolfe-Simon simply showed too much confidence. To hold a press conference to announce results that could have be announced via a peer-reviewed journal paper and to *not* have had any verification of her results was hard to forgive, but that is, perhaps, Science. But to have played to the audience and...what...try to sound like Carl Sagan during the process is significantly worse. She simply showed too much confidence. What she should have shown was some boring old humility and the common sense that scientists usually must have.

She is a qualified researcher but she her mistakes was to show too much confidence. That may sound petty, but *it matters* when you have already removed all of the the other safety-stops that are supposed to protect your reputation. It is like Chernobyl: you eliminate the protective safety stops and then you get a little careless and you get highly-amplified damage to your reputation back.

Think about the damage to Astrobiology this case has done. And perhaps to women in Astrobology. Think abou it: when a decision-maker has two proposal and only one can get funding and they are both very credible-looking but one looks, sounds or smells even a little like Iron Lisa. Which one is gonna get funding? Huh? She should have thought ahead. A little modesty at that press conference might have suited her better, but now, what is done is done. And she did it.

All she has to do now it get over it and get back to work. Humble, patience scientific work with mute, heartless Nature. After she does a decade or two of lab work, then she can generalize to the "public understanding of science" or whatever else she had in mind. The idea that she would throw away her career because she cannot now be the center of attention is not a message that any young person should hear. And she should refrain from disparaging speculative films from astronomy or whatnot, just to avoid burning her bridges in the area of space research.