Early release of a Science paper on oil-eating bacteria produced lots of stories today, and the ball bounced one more time between nature-damaged and nature-cleans-itself tales.
This came just a few days after a quick study of the plume in the Gulf made it seem as if bacteria were not moving rapidly to eat the oil.
Today's story reports on sampling of the plume that turned up an unknown microbe from the cold depths that had been stirred up by the accident. This one, unlike others, eats oil without significantly depleting oxygen. The Associated Press version by Randolph Schmid said the research team was led by Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and Hazen said, "Our findings, which provide the first data ever on microbial activity from a deepwater oil plume" suggest a great potential for bacteria to help dispose of plumes in deep water.
The bacteria were found in a plume of microscopic oil droplets more than 3,000 feet below the surface. With this find, scientists may have to rethink measuring oxygen depletion as a way to check on bacteria eating the oil. In other spills, blooms of bacteria caused by the presence of oil quickly depleted oxygen in the water.
---Phil Hilts
Comments
It will be interesting to see how many reporters place any stress upon, or make much mention of, the irony that team leader Hazen is at the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l Lab. It is a place of good academic repute. Its existence is also, as far as I know, almost entirely due to hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from BP. That was back five years ago or so when it was seen as a progressive oil company earnest in its interest in alternative fuels. It is a status that - who knows? - it could recapture some day. Thus its grants may have made possible a study showing that the oil spill really is over - in terms of oil spreading wider havoc - and that its wide and controversial use of dispersants, even at depth, may have been important factors in nature's self-bioremediation. Just an irony, and interesting, with little reason to suspect somebody was on the take - only enough to keep alert for any such!
The imminent announcement of the findings at the conference was a quandardy, definitely. And it's also very easy for outsiders like me to Monday (Wednesday) morning quarterback everything, as if the publication process wasn't complicated and hectic, especially now.
But with the insight of hindsight ... why not hold off publication of the Camilli paper until yesterday as well, and announce them together last Friday, when the Hazen paper was accepted? Then the daily reporters have four days to report. I don't htink any of us are looking for neat stories, tied in a bow; we're just trying to do our jobs as best as we can.
I'll leave any real defense to others at my publication since I had no involvement with these papers or their release but let me note one thing. I believe the bump up of the embargo time this week was because of the researchers--they planned to present the work Tuesday at a meeting, which likely would have prompted coverage by the media. I suspect the decision to release the paper early was that it made sense for the media to be able to reference the paper (with some admitted self-interest of wanting Science to be mentionned). For what it's worth, it's a bit naieve, especially for folks commited to daily online journalisms to look for neat stories tied in a bow in such a messy, fast-paced area of science. There will be oil spill paper after paper over the next year and it's ultimately a reporter/editor's decision whether each one is worth trumpeting. Nature could have yet another paper next week--will you blame them for not coordinating with Science?
Completely agree with BK above.
Situations like this fuel distrust of science and science journalism in general. In many cases different studies on a related subject appear months or years apart - that's just life. But in this case the studies could have appeared together, with no harm to either, and many benefits to a public that is confused and fearful about this subject.
It's awful how this and last week's WHOI-led study were handled by Science.
Last week there was the WHOI authors not being available until the press conference, which was scheduled one hour before embargo lift and guaranteed to produce hundreds of articles written as fast as possible.
Now this paper is bumped up to a Tuesday afternoon release, less than 48 hours after being announced Sunday night. At least it was possible to talk to the lead author.
The papers could have been published side-by-side, with normal lead time, allowing for enough reporting to give reasoned insight into the Gulf plume and, implicitly, how science works: different datapoints, different implications, different conclusions, shaken out in a process of investigation and analysis. Maybe the oil's there, maybe it's not. One group of researchers measured this and says that; another measured that and says this. It's provisional. It's complicated. We're trying.
Instead there's clouds of hasty, one-aspect stories -- "The oil will be there forever!" "Look, the oil's gone!" -- that yank the public around and are bound to leave some people saying, screw it. I'm not believing anything I read about the oil.