For the most part, Slashdot has degenerated to the point where it’s not even worth bothering to point just how off-the-mark its summaries of tech stories are. But I can’t resist the summary for this post on the discovery of a 20 million year old spider preserved in amber. From the Slashdot summary,
Since it is thought to be the first time that spider blood has been found perserved in amber, it is hoped that DNA could be extracted.
That sentence makes absolutely no sense. Whether or not DNA can be extracted from the spider’s blood is not contingent upon or related to at all the fact that this is probably the first time that spider blood had been discovered.
This would be like discovering a lost World War II submarine off the coast of Japan and saying,
Since this is thought to be the (insert number here) time that a submarine has been found off the coast of Japan, it is hoped that its naval log can be retrieved.
As I’ve said before, for being such a prominent tech blog, Slashdot’s quality control on its stories is woeful.