PUBLISHER elizabeth marincola
EDITOR IN CHIEF Tom Siegfried
EDITORIAL
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In the operas of science,
the fat lady never sings
In sports, to paraphrase Yogi Berra,
it’s over when it’s over. After a game
is in the books, the books don’t change
(except for all those victories erased
from the records of cheating college
football teams).
But in science, it’s a different story.
Even when a scientific finding is
enshrined in the pages of Science News, it still remains sus
ceptible to further review. In this case it’s not instant replay,
but distant replay, the process of replicating a result to con
firm its validity.
Often such additional studies verify and build on surpris
ing scientific findings, opening up new fields of research.
That’s how science makes progress. But from time to time,
the original findings are overturned, and the record book
requires correcting.
Two such examples show up in this issue. As Rachel
Ehrenberg reports (Page 10), the 2010 report of a bac
terium metabolizing arsenic instead of phosphorus turns
out to be contradicted by thorough new research. It seems
that this particular microbe doesn’t mind having arsenic
around the way most living things would. But it apparently
doesn’t incorporate arsenic into its DNA the way that the
original report implied.
In another case of nowyouseeitnowyoudon’t, the
supposedly first picture of an extrasolar planet, displayed
on the cover of the December 6, 2008 Science News, turns
out to be a picture showing an unidentified dot. A new
study concludes that the dot is probably not a planet at all,
as Nadia Drake reports (Page 12). Maybe it’s a much far
ther away star, or light bouncing off a cloud of dust. But it’s
not likely to be a planet, and it’s definitely not a microbe
munching on arsenic.
Scientists sometimes cringe at such revelations of their
fallibility, but there is really no reason to be upset about
any of this. It’s how science works, and how it works best.
Observations and experiments generate results that are
supposed to be subjected to further scrutiny. Science’s
great strength is the willingness to submit to such scrutiny
and alter conclusions in the face of new evidence. Nonsci
entists in any number of other fields of human endeavor
might want to ponder whether the world would be better
off if they had the same attitude.
—Tom Siegfried, Editor in Chief
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