Space dino retraction

A recent perspective article by Ron Breslow of Columbia University in the US has now been retracted after ongoing controversy. The article, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (DOI: 10.1021/ja3012897) was a general musing on the origin of homochirality on Earth and the work originally came to people’s attention after an irreverent conclusion at the end of the paper became reported by the mainstream media as suggesting that space was inhabited by dinosaurs.

Unfortunately, further scrutiny then found that the text of Breslow’s perspective was incredibly close to that of some of his previous articles. Breslow admits the error, but this episode has left many questioning why this was not picked up on earlier.