2007 – Page 2

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Blast Your Way to Evolutionary Progress

December 15, 2007

The cartoony slogan “Evolve or perish” garnered support from a new story about evolution. Dave Mosher on Live Science shamelessly titled his article “Catastrophic impacts made life flourish,” describing the theory by Birger Schmitz [U of Lund, Sweden] that the Ordovician extinction was caused by a meteor impact. Out of the wreckage, a plethora of […]

Amazing Facts

Geology Sinks in the Mud

December 14, 2007

Question: what is the most abundant sedimentary rock in the world? Follow-up question: what would happen to the science of geology if the consensus theory of how this most abundant sedimentary rock was deposited turns out to be wrong? Prepare for a paradigm shift: experiments have shown mistakes in long-held assumptions about mudstone formation. Here’s […]

Solar System

Stretching Saturn’s Rings in Time

December 13, 2007

An expert on planetary rings proposes a new way to keep them billions of years old.

Dumb Ideas

Walking Upright Is Not Just for Pregnant Females

December 13, 2007

Pregnant women have enhanced curvature of the lower spine, which helps them support their babies during pregnancy. Obviously, this must have evolved that way because emerging apes rising to their feet had different physiological needs. Most science news reports are echoing this theme from a paper in Nature1 without any qualms about the Lamarckism or […]

Dumb Ideas

Darwin Fish Pokes ID in the Eye

December 13, 2007

Some science news outlets are having an eye-poking battle against intelligent design with the latest eye-popping claim about eye evolution. It seems to have started in Australia on Science Alert, where some exceptionally-preserved placoderm fossils were found: The palaeobiologist discovered that unlike all living vertebrate animals – which includes everything from the jawless lamprey fish […]

Dinosaurs

What Mean These Bones?

December 12, 2007

Fossils found in unusual conditions and strange locations tell a silent story. Humans often cannot resist making up their own versions of the plot. Consider the following discoveries. Listen to the stories told about them, and ask: what is the probability the stories are true? How could we ever know? Who is qualified to be […]

Politics and Ethics

Could Evolutionary Racism Re-Emerge?

December 11, 2007

It is a tragic matter of record that some of recent history’s most brutal racial genocides were justified on Darwinian principles (see CMI articles about the Herero genocide, the Nazi genocide, and the Aborigine genocide). The perpetrators acted on what they believed were inexorable laws of nature, that evolution had equipped some races as superior […]

Biomimetics

Accurate Chemical Classifier Mimics Insect Nose

December 10, 2007

Two Germans have built a better chemical classification system by taking their inspiration from insect olfactory organs. Here’s how they described their achievement in an abstract from PNAS:1 The chemical sense of insects has evolved to encode and classify odorants. Thus, the neural circuits in their olfactory system are likely to implement an efficient method […]

Cell Biology

Will Adult Stem Cells Cure Sickle Cell Anemia?

December 9, 2007

It’s been just weeks since two labs announced success harvesting pluripotent stem cells from skin cells (11/20/2007), and already beneficial applications are in sight. Science Daily and Live Science reported on initial tests that show the new “induced pluripotent stem cells” offer hope for millions afflicted with sickle-cell anemia. Though it’s too early to tell […]

Amazing Facts

What Keeps Skin Strong? Velcro!

December 8, 2007

Skin would fall to pieces were it not for velcro-like molecules that bind its cells together. These molecules, called cadherins, make skin strong but also supple. Their secret was explained by Ashraf Al-Amoudi of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, quoted in Live Science. “The trick is that each cadherin binds twice: once to a molecule […]

Cosmology

SETI: Physics Conspires to Keep the Aliens Isolated

December 7, 2007

Where are the aliens? They’re too far away to get to know. Don’t look for galactic federations to join any time soon, said SETI Institute Director Seth Shostak at Space.com. The harsh realities of the speed of light make fellowship, both in person and via radio signals, too remote to be feasible. Shostak […]

Dumb Ideas

Origin of Life: Food for Queazy Thought

December 6, 2007

New theories of the origin of life seem to come and go like fashion trends. A biochemist at University of California at Santa Barbara (Helen Hansma) put out a new plot line about biomolecules forming between the protective flakes of mica. This was all Dave Mosher at Live Science (see reprint on MSNBC) needed to […]

Solar System

Is Making Planets Child’s Play?

December 5, 2007

Are star children good at child's play? Like making mudballs, it should be easy to roll up dust into planets.

Fossils

Evolutionists Explain Living Fossils

December 4, 2007

Why did the living forms look identical to the ancient forms after so many tens of millions of years of evolution?

Dinosaurs

Hadrosaur Skin Flick

December 3, 2007

The press is abuzz with the story of a mummified hadrosaur found in North Dakota with skin and fossilized soft parts; see PhysOrg, Science Daily, Associated Press and BBC News. Since the fully-articulated, uncollapsed, mummified fossil named “Dakota” was discovered in 1999, though, it appears that the announcement is being made now primarily as publicity […]

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