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Politics and Ethics

Adult Stem Cells Might Restore Hearing
August 27, 2004
A report from Marine Biological Laboratory found that adult stem cells show promise for restoring inner ear hair cells (see 08/09/2004 headline).  The tests, done on mice, might lead to treatment of hearing loss and balance disorders that affect 28 million Americans.     A few days earlier, Jonathan Knight, in Nature, worried over the […]
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Fossils

Genes Fail to Reveal Evolutionary Pattern in European Mammals
August 27, 2004
One would think an examination of DNA from fossils would track the animal’s geographical distribution as they evolved.  However, a study reported in PNAS1 failed to find any correlation in European mammals after the last glaciation.  Hofreiter et al. report: Here, we analyze mtDNA sequences from cave bears, brown bears, cave hyenas, and Neandertals in […]
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Astronomy

Delicate Planet Dance Disturbs Theories
August 27, 2004
Theorists have been thrown a curve ball with the discovery of a planet orbiting a binary star.  It appears that the gravitational tug on a hypothetical dust disk would have prevented the possibility of a planet forming around one of its members, but Gamma-Cephei has one.  “The formation of a planet in a binary star […]
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Astronomy

Multispectral Galaxy Studies Contradict Theories
August 27, 2004
The latest issue of Caltech’s magazine Engineering and Science1 has beautiful pictures of galaxies taken in ultraviolet by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), and in the infrared by Hubble’s sister, the Spitzer Space Telescope.  Combining images of the same galaxy in visible, ultraviolet and infrared is helping astronomers figure out their structure, and as D. […]
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Fossils

Extinctions Too Complex for Simple Stories
August 26, 2004
Impact theories of extinction are fighting for their own survival.  A commentary in PNAS1 warns that extinction theories are more complex than can be handled by a single event, like a meteor impact.  At best, they might be invoked as the coup-de-grace in a series of situations.  Hermann Pfefferkorn reveals the complexities in the Permian […]
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Uncategorized

Kin Selection and Group Selection: Survival of the Fictitious
August 26, 2004
Nature1 provided another case where W. D. Hamilton’s kin selection theory, which proposes that “selfish genes can lead to cooperation and altruism,” is wrong.  Kinship does not always lead to cooperation.  David C. Queller comments, “a once-heretical theory [group selection] and an unconventional social organism show that the cooperation-enhancing effect of kinship is sometimes negated.” […]
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Uncategorized

New Techniques Reveal Deep Sea Wonders
August 26, 2004
Operation Deep Scope has a new Eye-in-the-Sea deep-sea camera system that is revealing amazing animals never before seen, says EurekAlert.  A test run in the Gulf of Mexico by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute saw a fluorescent shark, a fluorescent sea anemone, a large squid and some fish that became invisible at certain angles in polarized […]
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Bible and Theology

What Would a Man Born Blind See With New Eyes?
August 26, 2004
The Bible records an instance of a man born blind miraculously healed, who was immediately able to walk and recognize things.  Scientists had doubted whether a blind person suddenly able to see would understand the world of vision at all, or be able to make any sense of his new sense.  Then a real world […]
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Amazing Facts

Researchers Record the Hum of Cellular Motors at Work
August 25, 2004
Researchers from UCLA placed a probe on a yeast cell and found that it vibrated at 1.6 kHz.  Further tests showed the vibration responded to temperature and to metabolic agents.  They think they have discovered the hum of cellular motors at work, reports Science News.1  “By the UCLA team’s calculations,“ writes Alexandra Goho, “molecular-motor proteins […]
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Uncategorized

Don’t Read Face of Molecular Clock at Face Value
August 24, 2004
A press release from PLoS Biology says the so-called “molecular clock” (the idea that genes mutate at a steady rate) is “not so dependable after all.”  Mutations tend to cluster around microsatellites in the genome, biasing the arrangement of genetic changes.  The claim is based on the work of Edward Vowles and William Amos, who […]
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Politics and Ethics

Interview
August 24, 2004
    Lest anyone suspect that atheism is no longer an issue, it’s “Reign of Terror Week” on The History Channel.  No fictional horror film could match what this series is revealing.  The episode Inside North Korea is a must see about the unbelievably horrible atrocities going on now in one atheist regime under the […]
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Uncategorized

Antarctica Hit by Catastrophic Meteors, Researchers Claim
August 23, 2004
A story in BBC News claims that multiple impact sites have been found under Antarctic ice covering an area 1300 by 2400 miles, with one impact making a hole in the ice 200 miles across.  The estimated date of these impacts (around 780,000 years ago) creates a problem, however: The research suggests that an asteroid […]
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Bible and Theology

Biblical History Artifacts Falling Prey to Looters
August 23, 2004
The plunder of antiquities in Iraq and Israel continues, forever diminishing the ability of archaeologists to recreate the Biblical past, say Newsweek reporters Melinda Liu and Christopher Dickey in MSNBC News.  Neither the new government in Iraq nor coalition troops are able to guard the many sites at which looters, in full daylight, dig up […]
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Dinosaurs

Land Dinosaurs Buried with Fish
August 22, 2004
Since dinosaurs are icons of evolutionary TV shows and even children’s cartoons about prehistoric evolving life, it may come as a surprise to some that evolutionists do not own the dinosaurs; even the name dinosaur was invented by a creationist, Richard Owen.  Last month, a creationist dinosaur dig in Montana1 was a monstrous success.  Joe […]
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Health

Germs and Venoms Can Heal
August 19, 2004
Three recent stories indicate that “nasty” things can be good, under the right circumstances: Germs and Aging:  Science Now reported that germs may prolong life.  A study on fruit flies showed that flies whose embryos were exposed to bacteria lived longer than those grown under sterile conditions.  Apparently the germs provide services in regulating genes […]
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