2006 – Page 6

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Baby Lucy Makes National Geographic Evolution Cover

October 22, 2006

No regime change is evident at National Geographic since Bill Allen left (see 02/15/2005). The Nov. 2006 is vintage NG with alleged primitive human ancestors on the cover, this time “Baby Lucy” (see 09/20/2006, 10/02/2006). Despite many passionate letters to the editor after their in-your-face Darwinist two years ago (see “Was Darwin Wrong?” 10/24/2004), this […]

Bible and Theology

Darwin Goes Online

October 19, 2006

A website featuring the complete published works of Charles Darwin went public today at Darwin-Online.org. This adds to an earlier site featuring all of Darwin’s correspondence, at Cambridge. Access is free to the public. Students and researchers will be able to search, compare and cross-check different versions of The Origin of Species and other things. […]

Origin of Life

New Titan Ethane Theory Proposed

October 18, 2006

They wonder where the ethane went (see 09/14/2006 and its links). The case of the missing ethane on Titan has only gotten more puzzling since the Huygens Probe landed last year and found almost none, when oceans a mile deep were anticipated. In Nature last week,1 D. M. Hunten (U of Arizona) posited a new […]

Dumb Ideas

Have Darwinian Anthropologists Learnt Their Lessons?

October 18, 2006

Chris Stringer, writing for the BBC News, talked about “Piltdown’s lessons for modern science.” After telling the history of the famous “missing link” fraud, he discussed four “lessons learnt” by one of the most notorious hoaxes in science history. For one, “we mustn’t let preconceived ideas run away with us.” For another, “specimens have to […]

Fossils

Oxygen YoYos and Wings

October 18, 2006

Molecular oxygen: you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. We breathe it in constantly or else we would turn blue and die within minutes. Yet we take antioxidants because of the harm that oxygen radicals can wreak in our cells. Like fire, it is a useful substance, but only when tightly […]

Fossils

Wanted Dead or Alive: New Mammals

October 18, 2006

Do we know all our fellow mammals? Further research has uncovered new furry creatures, fur sure. Furthermore, some are dead and some are alive and well: Weird Tooth: An “ancient mammal that defies classification” has been given a name, at least. EurekAlert reported that Horolodectes sunae, found 30 years ago in Alberta, remains a mystery: […]

Bible and Theology

The Role of God in Science and Life

October 18, 2006

Big science today may seem to be controlled by atheists, but that’s clearly not the case for many involved in science. Here are two unrelated stories from unexpected quarters expressing support for belief in God: No God, No Scientific Laws: Noted philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright has a new paper coming out that argues that […]

Amazing Facts

Self-cleaning Surfaces Take the Lotus Position

October 17, 2006

Photovoltaic cells and microelectromechanical systems have a problem: they collect dirt. What to do? Look to the lotus, says a EurekAlert article about research at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. C. P. Wong and team took inspiration from the self-cleaning surfaces of lotus leaves. “Despite growing in muddy conditions, the leaves and flowers remain clean […]

Cell Biology

Precambrian Cell Division Imaged

October 17, 2006

Embryos frozen in stone in the act of cell division were reported in Science.1 According to a press release from Virginia Tech, there are millions of fossilized embryos in the Doushantuo formation in south China, estimated to be 551 million years old, but “later stages of these animals are rare.” The EurekAlert version of this […]

Uncategorized

Does Darwin Play Dice?

October 16, 2006

Some recent scientific papers have spoken to the question of how big a role chance plays in Darwinism. This issue was one of the key points of contention by early critics of Darwin’s theory. Modern Darwinists argue whether evolution proceeds strictly by chance, or whether the environment constrains evolution to follow certain paths that lead […]

Geology

Gold Can Form in a Geological Instant

October 15, 2006

You can’t say something is old just because it looks old, like gold.

Dumb Ideas

Active SETI: If the Mountain Will Not Come to MyHomeET

October 14, 2006

SETI researchers must be getting bored sitting around waiting for a message. To bide the time, some have come up with a game called “Active SETI” – sending our messages to the aliens. It’s not that this game hasn’t been played before. The Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft each carried messages from earthlings, and the Arecibo […]

Health

Stem Cells: Hurry Up and Wait

October 13, 2006

When will embryonic stem cells produce cures for Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, paralysis and other maladies these wonder-cells were promised to bring? Be prepared to wait. If predictions of leading proponents are accurate, and if California is to be a world leader in stem cell research and clinical trials, even Christopher Reeve would have died […]

Cell Biology

Science Potpourri

October 13, 2006

Interesting articles from recent issues of Science have piled up in the queue. These might have made separate entries in CEH if time and space were unlimited. Deep Impact: The team of the Deep Impact mission to a comet published spectral results in the July 13 issue. “Emission signatures due to amorphous and crystalline silicates, […]

Amazing Facts

Glory Be Behind Saturn

October 12, 2006

Don’t look at this picture till you’re ready. Switch off the phone, turn off the radio, rub your eyes, and sit down. Ready? Click Here. This is a view of Saturn we could never see from Earth. It’s the backside of the planet, with the sun shining through the rings. According to a […]

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