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Amazing Facts

Engineers Envy Diatoms’ Glass-Sculpturing Prowess
July 21, 2004
What is it?  An ornate crown?  A crystal serving dish cover?  A work of art?  The photo on the cover of the July 17 Science News, labeled “silicon jewels,” is a microphotograph of a diatom, a one-celled organism that lives in the sea and builds itself a glass house too small to see with the […]
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Uncategorized

SETI Researcher Predicts Success Within 20 Years
July 21, 2004
According to New Scientist story reported on EurekAlert, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute predicts we will know within 20 years if there is intelligent life out there in the Milky Way.  He plugged his numbers into the Drake Equation and estimated between 10,000 and a million radio transmitters spreading messages across the galaxy.  He […]
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Amazing Facts

You Have Motorized Sunscreens in Your Eyeballs
July 19, 2004
The pain of walking suddenly into a bright light sets up an amazing reaction, according to EurekAlert.  An alarm is sent to the fire station in the retinal cell.  There, protein firefighters hop onto a motorized shuttle on the molecular railway, and once firmly attached, are ferried swiftly to the scene of danger.  There, they […]
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Human Body

Blame Evolution
July 19, 2004
Men can’t help themselves.  Evolution made them that way.  That’s the gist of a science story on ABC news.  Accompanied with a picture of rebel without a cause James Dean, it begins, “Research shows that simply being male means you’re more likely to die as a young adult.  Why?  Blame evolution…and pursuit of the opposite […]
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Human Body

Haemoglobin More Complex than Thought: Regulates Blood Flow
July 16, 2004
Physiologists have long known that haemoglobin, the molecule that adds the redness to red blood cells and carries oxygen to the tissues, releases its oxygen as the blood vessels constrict.  Now, increasing evidence shows that haemoglobin (composed of four complex proteins that surround a central iron atom) is not just a passive oxygen carrier.  It […]
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Marine Biology

1400 Genes Essential to Grow a Fish
July 16, 2004
A team from MIT scanned the genome of the zebrafish and concluded there are about 1400 genes essential for embryonic and early larval development.  They did hands-on mutation experiments with 315 of these and found that mutations usually produced visible defects within 5 days that were invariably lethal.  Estimating that they had experimented on about […]
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Uncategorized

London Church School Rejects Creationism as “Rubbish”
July 15, 2004
According to a news item on the Ekklesia website, a new Christian academy in London “which unlike many church schools will operate a truly inclusive admission’s policy” will not be teaching the Genesis account of a six-day creation, “because such a view is ‘rubbish’” according to an administrator.  The Oasis Trust runs educational projects for […]
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Politics and Ethics

AIDS Policy: Morality a Casualty at the Intersection of Politics and Big Science
July 15, 2004
A news item in the July 15 issue of Nature1 seems to take sides against President Bush’s AIDS policy.  The United States, the largest donor for AIDS prevention and treatment, “is promoting a mantra known as ABC: abstinence, be faithful and use condoms.”  Although it would seem these simple preventative steps would quickly diminish the […]
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Fossils

Earliest Bilaterian Fossil Claimed
July 14, 2004
Microscopic etchings in rock alleged to be primitive bilaterian fossils have been reported by J.Y. Chen et al. in China.  (Bilateria are organisms displaying symmetry along one axis.)  The report, printed in the July 9 issue of Science,1 dates the fossils at 40-55 million years before the Cambrian.  Erik Stokstad in the same issue2 calls […]
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Physical Science

Is Earth’s Magnetic Field Reversing?
July 13, 2004
The New York Times and World Net Daily have stories about Earth’s magnetic field.  The strength of the field has declined 10-15% over the past 150 years.  If undergoing a reversal, which some physicists say is overdue, it could have profound effects on migratory animals like birds and turtles, and allow more dangerous radiation to […]
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Health

Parasitic Worms Regulate Immune System
July 13, 2004
Most people will not be ready to stomach a suggestion from the July 9 issue of Science1: parasitic worms can be good for you.  Yikes: what’s next– worm therapy?     According to Joel Weinstock of the University of Iowa, evidence is increasing that worms help regulate the immune system, and show promising results for […]
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Amazing Facts

Sparrows Do the Long Haul Without Sleep
July 13, 2004
During their 2600-mile migrations from Southern California to Alaska, white-crowned sparrows fly day and night without sleep for days on end.  Apparently they don’t have to fly on automatic pilot.  Science Now tells about a University of Wisconsin psychiatrist who watched captive sparrows during their migratory period.  The birds seemed alert and in no way […]
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Amazing Facts

Cell Cargo Speeds On Bidirectional Highways
July 12, 2004
As reported here numerous times (e.g., 06/14/2004, 12/04/2003, 04/14/2003, 03/28/2003, 02/25/2003, 12/17/2002, 09/26/2002, 03/26/2002, 02/01/2002, 12/06/2001, 08/17/2001, 06/19/2001, 02/21/2001), cells have an elaborate interstate highway system with molecular trucks hauling cargo back and forth.  Scientists have known that the cellular highways have polarities labeled plus and minus, and that molecular motors typically go one way.  […]
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Uncategorized

Plate Tectonics Gets Squishy
July 9, 2004
Two reports on plate tectonics this week make it seem less like “hard” science.  Over 30 years ago, plate tectonics theory surprised many by going mainstream.  In recent years, however, observations have complicated matters.     In the July 8 issue of Nature,1 Norman H. Sleep evaluates a paper in the same issue2 that tackles […]
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Astronomy

Infant Cosmos Was Already Elderly
July 8, 2004
At first, they weren’t sure it was real or they were just seeing things.  Now, it’s inescapable.  As far back as cosmologists can see, there were already mature galaxies.  That’s the thrust of two papers in the July 8 issue of Nature1,2 and a commentary on them by Keck Observatory astronomer Greg Wirth3, who says […]
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