You are currently viewing the summary.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Summary
The debate that erupted 5 months ago over whether a bacterium could thrive on arsenic, even incorporating the element in its DNA, is finally being aired in the scientific literature rather than on blogs. Originally published online by Science on 2 December 2010, the paper describing this potentially unprecedented microbe appears on page 1163 of this week's issue. Eight Technical Comments, released online last week, formally raise many of the criticisms that were quickly hurled when the study was published online and publicized in a NASA briefing. The scientific exchange is unlikely to be the final word on the contentious issue, all agree, especially because there have yet been no independent studies of the microbe at the center of this spat.
