The return of the arsenic-munching microbes – ChemBark sums up what he sees as the state of S(s)cience with respect to the infamous arsenic-exploiting bacteria reported by Wolfe-Simon et al: "…a study as flawed as Wolfe-Simon’s should never had been published in Science in the first place. The most obvious problems and omissions should have been ironed out by peer review. For a paper as manifestly flawed (or incomplete—take your pick) as Wolfe-Simon’s to be published in a top-tier journal, something went wrong. But I’ll agree that once such a mistake has been made, the (informal) backlash and (formal) technical comments are probably the best way to mitigate the damage." Pretty much says it all. He also criticises the team for their every response being a riposte, as if they couldn't possibly be wrong on any aspect of their experiments and their paper…