Sunday, January 22, 2006

A rare miss for the Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Astronomy Picture of the Day has been my home page for years. It's interesting, accurate and well-explained.

Today, they had a rare miss. In explaining Deinococcus radiodurans, a microbe that can tolerate environmental extremes, they say "Amazingly, they even have the ability to repair their own DNA, usually with 48 hours."

This isn't so amazing. Except for viruses, every organism can repair its DNA. They have to, otherwise they'd all die pretty quick, or have cancer sprouting from every pore.