Two new studies add to the mounting evidence refuting the controversial claim that NASA-funded scientists had isolated a bacterium that could thrive on arsenic.

In a December 2010 paper, a team led by NASA astrobiology research fellow Felisa Wolfe-Simon announced that a microbe dubbed GFAJ-1 could thrive in the presence of arsenic, incorporating the toxic substance in its DNA in the place of phosphorous, one of the six elements of life. The results were made public in a NASA press conference that drew attention to the finding’s implications on the agency’s quest for life in other parts of the universe.

But in two papers published online in Science last Sunday, the findings are once more refuted. In the first study, a team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich concludes that the bacteria “lacked the ability to grow in phosphorus-depleted…arsenate-containing medium,” and concludes that GFAJ-1 is “an arsenate-resistant, but still a phosphate-dependent bacterium.”  In the second paper, a team from Princeton University finds that the toxin did not contribute to growth in the bacterium and was unable to find detectable traces of the substance in its DNA.

These findings echo the conclusions reached by a researcher last February, which found that trace levels of phosphorous were the cause of the reported growth in the original study.

According to a BBC article covering the story, Science has not retracted the original article, but accompanied the recent studies with the following statement:

“In conclusion, the new research shows that GFJA-1 does not break the long-held rules of life, contrary to how Wolfe-Simon had interpreted her group’s data.  The scientific process is a naturally self-correcting one, as scientists attempt to replicate published results.”  (Editor’s Note:   One must be a subscriber to Science to read the journal’s actual statement.)

Michael New, who works for NASA’s planetary science division, issued a statement saying that the new papers “challenge some of the conclusions” of the 2010 announcement, but neither “invalidates” the original “observations of a remarkable micro-organism that can survive in a highly phosphate-poor and arsenic-rich environment toxic to many other micro-organisms.  What has emerged … is an as yet incomplete picture of GFAJ-1 that clearly calls for additional research.”

UPDATE:   Adds Dennis Overbye’s wonderful explanation of the Higgs field in language definitely understandable by policy wonks.

The existence of the Higgs boson is fundamental to the Standard Model of physics and our understanding of everything in the universe — some call it the “God particle.”

Brian Vastag and Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post have written an eminently understandable layperson-friendly explanation of the Higgs boson and the significance of today’s announcement.  They say the Higgs boson sets up a “sort of force field that permeates everything….It’s the water the entire universe swims in.”

Dennis Overbye writing in the New York Times offered the perfect explanation in language meant for policy wonks:    “…the Higgs boson is only the manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass.  Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going through Congress attracts riders and amendments, becoming ever more ponderous.”

Higgs is 83 and still active in the particle physics community.  He was present at Geneva-based CERN today when the announcement was made, with a video feed to the International Conference on High Energy Physics being held in Melbourne, Australia.  CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, manages the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  The experiments were conducted using the LHC in 2011 and 2012.  Two years ago, CERN pledged to either prove or refute the Higgs boson theory using the LHC in two years in order to coincide with this conference according to the Washington Post. 

Many media outlets are reporting that the particle was discovered, but CERN officials and scientists involved in the research were more measured, insisting that the results are preliminary and still need to be validated. 

Two independent teams using different particle detectors, ATLAS and CMS, have been underway.  Both observed a new particle in the mass region around 125-126 GeV (gigaelectronvolts).   CERN quoted an ATLAS experiment spokeswoman, Fabiola Gianotti, as saying “a little more time is needed to prepare these results for publication.”  A CMS spokesman, Joe Incandela, said “[w]e know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson even found…The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks.”

CERN itself added that “[p]ositive identification of the new particle’s characteristics will take considerable time and data.   But whatever form the Higgs particle takes, our knowledge of the fundamental structure of matter is about to take a major step forward.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released a video showing the formation and movement of a devastating wind storm that hit several states, including the Washington-Baltimore area, on Friday night Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

The video shows a storm called a “derecho” form near Chicago and move east, wreaking havoc in its path.   The imagery is from NOAA’s GOES East geostationary satellite.  Derechos are long-lived straight-line wind storms accompanied by showers or thunderstorms.  The storm knocked out electrical power, Internet service, and phone service to about 3 million customers from Ohio to New Jersey.  The Washington-Baltimore area reportedly had 1 million people without electricity at the height of the outage.   Although many customers have been restored, hundreds of thousands remain without power today. 

NOAA has been under a lot of criticism for its management of weather satellites and at a hearing two days before this storm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned of a potential gap in coverage from GOES satellites in the 2016-2017 time frame.  GAO said the first of a new series, GOES-R, may not meet its October 2015 launch date.   Concern had been focused on a potential data gap from NOAA’s polar orbiting weather satellites in that same time period.

School is out, Congress is out, and the electrical power is out in much of the Washington,DC area as the result of a terrible storm on Friday night with 70-80 mile per hour winds.  With temperatures in the 100 degree F range and many homes without air conditioning or refrigeration, a lot of people probably are looking forward to going to work tomorrow and — hopefully —  to air-conditioned office buildings in the DC-area to debate space policy.  However, it is a quiet week not only in Washington, but everywhere.  The events we know of are listed below.

 Monday, July 2

• NASA Events Marking the Arrival of the First Space-Bound Orion Capsule, Kennedy Space Center, FL
  • 10:00 am ET, press conference (watch on NASA TV)
  • 11:30 am ET, interactive session with NASA leaders and Orion program managers on NASA’s social media accounts

Monday-Tuesday, July 2-3

• NASA Advisory Council Heliophysics Subcommittee, NASA Headquarters
  • Monday, July 2, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm ET
  • Tuesday, July 3, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm ET

Three International Space Station crew members are getting ready to return to Earth overnight, with undocking scheduled for 12:53 am July 1 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), about 7 hours from now.  Landing is expected in Kazakhstan at about 4:15 am EDT.

NASA’s Don Pettit, Russia’s Oleg Kononenko, and Europe’s Andre Kuipers will return on their SoyuzTMA-03M spacecraft after about 6 months on ISS.  Three replacements are scheduled for launch on July 14 — NASA’s Suni Williams, Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko, and Japan’s Aki Hoshide. 

The ISS usually has six crew aboard, but during these crew rotations, only three staff the station for a couple of weeks.   The three who are remaining on ISS and will greet the new crew two weeks from now are NASA’s Joe Acaba and Russia’s Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) told Congress yesterday that in addition to a possible gap in data from NOAA’s polar-orbiting weather satellites, a similar gap in data from its geostationary satellites could also occur.   It also told two House subcommittees that NOAA’s cost estimate for its new polar-orbiting satellites actually was $14.6 billion, not the $12.9 billion figure NOAA uses publicly.  That figure is a cap imposed by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and NOAA is taking action to reduce costs to meet that target.

NOAA operates weather satellites in polar orbits that circle the entire globe as well as in geostationary orbits that maintain a fixed position over the equator.  The current generations are called Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES).   NOAA was part of a tri-agency program to build new polar orbiting satellites called the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), but that program failed and NOAA is now embarked upon its own Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). NASA manages the acquisition of those satellites through a reimburseable arrangement with NOAA.  Separately, NOAA is developing a new generation of GOES satellites — the GOES-R series. 

GAO’s David Powner told two subcommittees of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee that, overall, both of those weather satellite programs are doing better than in the past, but that does not mean they are trouble free.  The biggest surprise of the hearing was Powner’s statement that NOAA has only a 48 percent confidence level that GOES-R, the first of four satellites in the series, will meet its launch date in October 2015.  A potential delay in the shipment of the Geostationary Lightning Mapper was cited as one schedule risk factor.

Concern has been focused on a potential data gap for the polar orbiting satellites.   NOAA’s existing POES satellites already are getting old.   A NASA satellite, NPP Suomi, designed and built as a technology testbed for the NPOESS program, is being repurposed as an operational weather satellite to provide data between now and when the first JPSS is launched.  That is scheduled for the spring of 2017, but there is concern that it will not be on orbit with its instruments properly calibrated and validated before NPP Suomi ceases operations.  Powner said a 17-month data gap is a best case scenario if NPP Suomi lasts five years and JPSS-1 keeps its 2017 launch date.  

Powner also revealed at the hearing that NOAA’s actual cost estimate for JPSS was $14.6 billion, but OMB told NOAA it could only have $12.9 billion.  NOAA refers to that as a “cap” and it is $1 billion higher than what NOAA told Congress last year.  It includes sunk costs in NPOESS, two JPSS satellites, two additional small satellites for instruments that cannot be accommodated on JPSS, and operations through 2028.  NOAA explained earlier this year that the $1 billion increase is because it extended the operational period from 2024 to 2028, so the lifecycle cost estimate covers an additional four years of operations.

Stung by the NPOESS fiasco where years of cost overruns and schedule delays ultimately led the White House to kill the program in February 2010, Congress views this new $1 billion increase with alarm, however.  The Senate Appropriations Committee lambasted NOAA in its report (S. Rept. 112-158) on the FY2013 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill and called for the weather satellite programs to be transferred to NASA because of NOAA’s management shortcomings.  NOAA would still operate the satellites once in orbit, but NASA would otherwise be responsible for them.

NOAA’s Deputy Administrator Kathy Sullivan and NASA’s Marcus Watkins, Director of the Joint Agency Satellite Division, declined to tell the subcommittees what the Obama Administration’s position is on the Senate proposal.   Both insisted that the Administration is studying the implications and not yet ready to take a position.  Watkins’ division serves as the acquisition agent for NOAA’s satellites, managing the contracts for the satellites and associated launch vehicles.  NOAA reimburses NASA for those activities today, but under the Senate Appropriations Committee’s plan, NASA would be completely in charge and the money would be appropriated to NASA rather than NOAA.

Powner emphasized the $1.7 billion “funding gap” for JPSS between NOAA’s estimate of $14.6 billion and OMB’s cap of $12.9 billion.  A GAO report released simultaneously with the hearing discloses the options NOAA is considering to cope with that shortfall.  Sullivan said she has “high confidence” that the measures NOAA is taking to get down to the $12.9 billion figure will be successful, but that it also needs “very high and continued scrutiny.”

Sullivan and Watkins were asked about the potential impact on JPSS and GOES-R of a Continuing Resolution (CR) that goes beyond the first quarter of FY2013. Congress routinely passes CRs when it cannot complete action on the regular appropriations bills by the beginning of a fiscal year on October 1.  CRs generally hold agencies to their previous year funding levels.  Agencies have become accustomed to CRs for that last one-three months, but problems can develop if they last longer.   Sullivan and Watkins indicated that JPSS probably would be OK under even a long-term CR since the requested funding level for FY2013 is almost the same as what it received for FY2012 (just over $900 million).    GOES-R, however, needs a “bump” in FY2013 to begin acquiring a launch vehicle.  The GOES-R request for FY2013 is $802 million compared to the $616 million it received for FY2012.   If it is held at the FY2012 level,  there could be “severe negative impacts” to the program’s cost and schedule, Watkins said. 

A webcast of the hearing and prepared statements are available on the committee’s website.