
Claim that tardigrades got 1/6 of DNA from microbes is starting to unravel - r0muald
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/12/rival-scientists-kill-recent-discovery-about-invincible-animals/418755/?single_page=true
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FeepingCreature
Fuck this narrative of rivalry.

Scientists working in the same field have put out a study that disagrees with
the first study. This is not a severe blow, it does not debunk the first
study, it does not imply some sort of rivalry. Science is _cooperative_. We
all want to find the truth.

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tosseraccount
PNAS Paper (the firs paper) is here :
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1510461112.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1510461112.abstract)
: "Evidence for extensive horizontal gene transfer from the draft genome of a
tardigrade". The gene transfer angle is the most prominent thrust of the
paper: "Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the transfer of genes between
species, has been recognized recently as more pervasive than previously
suspected. Here, we report evidence for an unprecedented degree of HGT into an
animal genome, based on a draft genome of a tardigrade, Hypsibius dujardini."

Non target contamination in sequencing DNA and RNA is common. Attributing
"horizontal gene transfer" due to the "noise" is a mistake. The second group
actually does debunk the initial paper's main point.

Perhaps establishment science need to move the peer review from before
publication to after.

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jkyle
> Perhaps establishment science need to move the peer review from before
> publication to after.

The after publication 'peer review' is when colleagues attempt to replicate
your findings. It's a series of gates to credibility and general acceptance,
not a single door.

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carbocation
This leads off a series of tweets from the Edinburgh team evaluating the read
data with some informative images:
[https://twitter.com/sujaik/status/671758970982416385](https://twitter.com/sujaik/status/671758970982416385)

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stefantalpalaru
Is there a way to get just the DNA you're interested in sequencing in the
first place? Eliminating the sequences that look out of place afterwards does
not seem like a good strategy.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Supposing there was, why wouldn't they have done that?

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stefantalpalaru
Cost.

