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Biomimetics

Honey More Effective than Antibiotics
July 27, 2006
A good old nature remedy is making a comeback: honey for wounds.  An article on EurekAlert about research at the University of Bonn states that honey is more effective than antibiotics at healing cuts and wounds.  Apparently the ancient Egyptians knew about its healing power.  Honey rejects dead tissue faster, repels bacteria, promotes more rapid […]
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Amazing Facts

Eye Sends Information at Ethernet Rates
July 27, 2006
Neuroscientists from Pennsylvania and New Jersey calculated the information rate of the eye.  Using guinea pigs (real guinea pigs, not humans as guinea pigs), they came up with a number and interpolated it for humans: In the classic “What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain,” Lettvin and colleagues showed that different types of retinal […]
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Dumb Ideas

Genetic Loss Is Evolution’s Gain
July 26, 2006
Three scientists in the University of California system found that “Repression and loss of gene expression outpaces activation and gain” among recently duplicated genes.  Surprisingly, publishing in PNAS,1 they claim the non-intuitive hypothesis that this the mother of evolutionary invention.  From the abstract: Evolutionists widely acknowledge that regulatory genetic changes are of paramount importance for […]
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Amazing Facts

A Second Code Controls the DNA Code
July 26, 2006
More has been discovered about the histone or nucleosome code (see 02/17/2004), a second genetic code independent of the DNA genetic sequence that directs the formation of proteins.  The New York Times (see also Science Daily) reported on work by scientists at Northwestern University who found that the wrapping of DNA around nucleosomes (made of […]
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SETI

SETI: Shut Up and Keep Looking
July 25, 2006
On Space.com, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute answered the critics who think they’re “barking up the wrong tree.”  Well-meaning people send him emails explaining why there is “still no confirmed chitter from the cosmos” after 46 years of looking.  The top four include: (1) aliens use more advanced technology, (2) the Fermi Paradox means […]
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Fossils

Is This Frog Marrow Really 10 Million Years Old?
July 25, 2006
LiveScience reported finding intact bone marrow from fossils of frogs and salamanders.  Without blinking an eye, reporter Ker Than croaked that the marrow is ten million years old.  He compared it with the intact soft tissue and blood cells found in a T. rex specimen last year (see 02/22/2006, 06/03/2005, 03/24/2005), and said, The discovery […]
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Amazing Facts

Titan’s Land-o’-Lakes Found
July 24, 2006
The Cassini spacecraft has found features that look like methane lakes in the northern latitudes of Titan (see JPL press release).  The large dark patches, some about 30 miles across with rounded edges, appear to be associated with fluid channels.  Radar echoes cannot determine for sure whether the surface is liquid (dark means smooth, light […]
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Cosmology

Theory Battles Observations in Near-Field Cosmology
July 23, 2006
Which is more important in science: a consistent model, or a good fit with observations?  Clearly both would be the ideal.  A report in Science1 this week revealed that astronomers are having trouble holding the two together.  The problem is especially acute for near-field cosmology that deals with nearby galaxies.     It may seem […]
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Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week Judges Swamped
July 23, 2006
What can editors do when too many entries come in a week?  Print them all, and let the public decide: Fear Factor:  Ker Than, proposing in LiveScience that fear of snakes led to the rise of humans: “To avoid becoming snake food, early mammals had to develop ways to detect and avoid the reptiles before […]
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Fossils

Chinese “Living Fossil” Amphibians Found
July 22, 2006
World Net Daily found a story on People’s Daily Online that 1200 specimens of an amphibian, Hynobiidaes, have been found in southwest China.  The article states, “These are a type of amphibian species around 300 million years old that once used to live in the dinosaur period.” Other news sources have not yet reported this […]
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Fossils

Bear Tooth DNA Yields New Date Record: 400,000 Years
July 22, 2006
According to a story posted on Yahoo News, Swedish scientists found intact DNA in a bear tooth claimed to be 400,000 years old.  The team leader remarked, “It is usually hard to find DNA that is older than 100,000 years, and work on fossilized DNA mostly focuses on material that is a few tens of […]
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Education

Education & Political News
July 22, 2006
What’s been happening in school boards about evolution and intelligent design?  Here are some recent stories about politicians, reporters and ordinary citizens: Kansas Grass Roots:  Candidates vying for school board seats in Liberal, Kansas squared off over the evolution issue: see Hutchinson News. Ohio Rematch:  Despite an earlier loss, Darwin critics in Ohio are hoping […]
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Cell Biology

Cell Backup Systems Challenge Evolution, Show Design Principles
July 21, 2006
Has an intelligent design paper been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences?1  Read the abstract and decide whether this research supports Darwinism or design: Functional redundancies, generated by gene duplications, are highly widespread throughout all known genomes.  One consequence of these redundancies is a tremendous increase to the robustness of organisms […]
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Uncategorized

Darwin’s Yard De-Evolves
July 21, 2006
According to the BBC News biodiversity in Darwin’s yard at Down House in England has declined 15% since he fastidiously catalogued plant species there in 1855. This story signifies nothing significant.  Biodiversity naturally declines in some grasslands as forests encroach and a climax community develops.  Evolutionists would not expect noteworthy genetic change in just 150 […]
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Early Man

Neanderthal: Am I My Sequencer’s Brother?
July 21, 2006
Associated Press reported a two-year initiative to sequence the Neanderthal genome (see MSNBC News, and also a separate report on News@Nature).  A progressive creationist society headed by Dr. Hugh Ross, Reasons to Believe, is predicting the results “will show Neanderthals did not evolve into modern humans.” RTB has long contended that Neanderthal Man had nothing […]
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