About as real as other BP funded "science" that we've read recently. Looking at how eager the administration has been to move this problem along, it's not easy to have faith in government reports either. (A big thanks to those in the Obama team who want to continue the Bush policy of trashing the public's trust in these organizations.)
The oil eating microbes are for real, but let's not get carried away with the story.
An Aug. 24 study in the journal Science had great news for Gulf Coast residents: A newly discovered, voracious microbe is rapidly eating the oil spilled in the BP gusher. The specially adapted oil-eating bacteria are so effective, said lead researcher Terry Hazan of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that they have apparently devoured an entire 22-mile-long underwater plume. Skeptics noted that Hazan's research was funded by BP. Does that discredit the good tidings?
Don't trust the sunny news: The BP funding sure makes this look like "fuzzy science," says Alex Moore in Death + Taxes. But worse, all the good news is coming from government-affiliated labs and federal agencies. Private labs are "skeptical," and one of them, Woods Hole, just reported that the undersea plumes appear intact. Wouldn't the Obama team gain a lot by turning "the worst oil spill of all time to the luckiest" one?
"Scientists reporting natural cleanup funded by BP and US Dept of Energy"
