choice reading 15
How a Collapsing Scientific Hypothesis Ended in an Arrest
A recent discovery, or at least a thought of discovery, was made with the retro virus called XMRV. This retrovirus was implicated as the cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome(CFS) and a cause of prostate cancer. Both were discoveries made in labs while testing mice with this retrovirus. A scientist was put on the task force to find out if CFS is caused by this retro virus. This is a huge concern because CFS was thought to be psychosomatic or self caused. After investigation, the scientist was arrested, and the hypothesis was disproved by 9 labs all testing both infected and blind trials. This is an interesting article and classroom application would be useful to say that not all results are concrete. Even in the professional world, scientific labs can get it wrong, and further trials must be done to ensure our results as well as we can. This is a good example for students to use repeated trials to gain their results, double check their work, and take their time. Discoveries like this can change the way the world looks at treatment, but for the classroom it can mean disproving daily procedures that are in a lab manual and should be right*.
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