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Amazing Facts

Mother-of-Pearl Inspires Materials Science
July 5, 2007
It’s not only beautiful, it’s strong.  EurekAlert described how scientists are intrigued by mother-of-pearl, also called nacre, because of its strength: you can drive a truck over it and it will not break.  It is 3,000 times more resistant to fracture than the aragonite from which the oyster makes it.  95% of it self-assembles in […]
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Dinosaurs

Chinese Eat Dragon Bone for Health
July 4, 2007
Chinese villagers dig up dinosaur bones for health food.  Yahoo News reported, “Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers.”  The article says the bones are calcium rich and […]
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Dumb Ideas

Evolutionist Trains Toddler to Adore Darwin
July 3, 2007
Marc Hauser is an evolutionary psychologist at Harvard who believes human morals and language evolved from ape-like ancestors.1  He was interviewed in Current Biology,2 and asked the usual question – and gave the usual answer with a surprising personal twist: Do you have a scientific hero? When my youngest daughter was about three years old, […]
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Geology

Lord Kelvin’s Core Values Defended
July 2, 2007
Myth: Lord Kelvin held back the progress of geology for 100 years by insisting the Earth was younger than geologists and evolutionists believed. Myth debunked here.
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Dumb Ideas

A Brain Emerged for Such a Worm as I
July 2, 2007
With no room for discussion or Q&A, a press release from European Molecular Biology Laboratory asserted, “Modern brains have an ancient core.”  How ancient?  At least as far back as the marine ragworm.  Continuing the confident assertions, it went on to say, “Multifunctional neurons that sense the environment and release hormones are the evolutionary basis […]
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Amazing Facts

Health News that Brings Hope
July 1, 2007
Why do we never see articles claiming that exercise is bad?  Here are some more reasons to get moving. Work your brain:  Who wouldn’t mind a few more brain cells?  EurekAlert reported research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that exercise can stimulate the formation of new brain cells.  They think this helps explain why […]
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Astronomy

Cosmic Star Formation: When Elegant Theories Are Wrong
June 30, 2007
An astronomer wrote about “cosmic train wrecks” in Science recently.1  Paolo Coppi (Yale) was speaking about galactic mergers, but he could have just as well been talking about current cosmological models.  Things once thought to be understood are coming in for new scrutiny, now that more powerful telescopes can peer deeper into the veiled hearts […]
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Early Man

The Chimp-Human 1% Difference: A Useful Lie
June 29, 2007
Jon Cohen made a remarkable admission in Science this week.1  The popular notion that humans and chimpanzees are genetically 99% similar is a myth, and should be discarded.  Since 1975, textbooks, the media and museums have emphasized this close similarity; but now, Cohen quoted a number of scientists who say the number cannot possibly be […]
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Dumb Ideas

Darwin’s House: A Religious Shrine?
June 28, 2007
Britain withdrew Darwin’s home, Downe House (outside London), from consideration as a UN World Heritage Site, and Nature seemed downright disappointed.1  An article quoted Darwin scholar James Moore saying, “Muslims go to Mecca, Christians go to Jerusalem, Darwinians go to Downe.”  This seems to equate Darwinians with believers in a religion, but Nature quoted this […]
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Early Man

Chimp Altruism: Is it All True?
June 27, 2007
Humans are the only inhabitants of earth that are masters of true altruism: helping others with no thought of reward.  Previous experiments had shown that chimpanzees lack this trait.  Given an opportunity to help another chimp get a banana, they showed no pattern of charity.  New experiments by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for […]
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Birds

Giant Fossil Penguins Lived in Warm Waters
June 26, 2007
“Giant prehistoric penguins?  In Peru?” puzzled a reporter on Science Daily.  “It sounds more like something out of Hollywood than science,” but a fossil penguin you could look eye to eye with has been found that far north.  “We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species,” said one of the discoverers,” but not […]
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Uncategorized

Could Continents Be Flooded?
June 26, 2007
Picture the tips of the Rocky Mountains sticking out of water.  That’s what would happen if North America did not have enough heat at depth to cause the continent to float on the mantle, reported Science Daily. A University of Utah study shows how various regions of North America are kept afloat by heat within […]
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Amazing Facts

Our Complex Brains: Lessons from Phrenology
June 25, 2007
This is your brain on science: it is too complex for simplistic diagrams.  Back in the 19th century, the “science” of phrenology was in full swing.  Phrenologists divided the brain into more than two dozen regions of “mental faculties” that controlled such things as instincts for eating and sex, sensation of color, language ability, and […]
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Education

Council of Europe Officially Condemns Creationism and I.D.
June 22, 2007
A lengthy and strident policy document was issued by the Council of Europe denouncing creationism.  The summary statement makes it clear there is no compromise possible, because “religious fundamentalists” are behind it, and that creationism and intelligent design must be firmly and unequivocally opposed.  Evolution, by contrast, is given supreme status as the explanation for […]
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Cell Biology

Crisis at Both Ends of Darwin’s Tree
June 21, 2007
Two assumptions about evolution – one about the earliest multicellular organisms and one about the rise of mammals – have run into trouble.  Eukarya sans Mechanista:  “In the absence of direct evidence, science should proceed cautiously with conjecture,” wisely advised Anthony Poole and David Penny in Nature.1  They scorned the researchers who glibly invent fables […]
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