two articles caught my eye this week in PLoS for the same reason.
first one:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0001027
Researchers have been studying a population of Tits for 41 years (!) writing down as many matings as possible to study the effects of inbreeding.
They managed to track down 58 inbreeding events and came to the conclusion that they couldn't make a conclusion on the decreased fitness of inbreeding.
The other article:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0001012
Here researchers looked at the mitochondrial DNA to find the origin of the domesticated goat.
For this they examined the DNA of 2430 goats (!).
Unfortunately they couldn't find a clear picture. Apparently goats have been moving around a lot and only a very very very general picture emerged that everything is a mess.
Conclusion
Both articles were careful and large studies. Both articles didn't have a clear result. And still they got published and still I enjoyed reading them.
In a way it's more interesting to read something that is not clear. Maybe that is why I hate most modern articles that excel in claiming to have found the Truth!