Retraction of the Controversial 'Arsenic Life' Paper After 15 Years

A controversial paper claiming the existence of a microorganism thriving on arsenic, published in Science nearly 15 years ago, has been retracted. The paper, which suggested a bacterium could substitute arsenic for phosphorus, faced intense criticism. Follow-up studies failed to reproduce the results, with critics citing phosphate contamination in the experiments and the chemical instability of arsenic in biomolecules. While the authors maintain their data's validity, Science editors determined the experiments didn't support the key conclusions, leading to the retraction. This highlights science's ongoing commitment to rigorous data.