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Origin of Life

Is Hardy Life Evidence of an Evolutionary Origin?
March 29, 2007
Salt-tolerate species of unicellular organisms are found in all three kingdoms of life, says an article on Space.com.  “Astrobiologists, those cross disciplinary scientists dedicated to investigating the broad question of life in the universe,” writes Lisa Chu-Theilbar of the SETI Institute, “often study extremophiles, organisms that live at the edges of what life is known […]
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Physics

Saturn Still Serving Surprises
March 28, 2007
The Cassini Spacecraft, three-fourths of the way into its 4-year prime mission, is not running out of new things to see.  Some of the latest discoveries are both awesome and strange. A Hex on the Pole:  As if the south pole of Saturn, with its earth-sized hurricane (picture) were not dramatic enough, the north pole […]
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Uncategorized

Desperately Seeking Macroevolution
March 28, 2007
With Intelligent Design critics hot on their heels, Darwinian evolutionists are hot to find transitional forms that they can exhibit as evidence for large-scale evolution (macroevolution).  A symposium on that very subject was held last October by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), but a report on the conference did not come out till […]
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Uncategorized

Geological Truisms Questioned
March 27, 2007
Nothing is a constant in scientific theories.  Popular ideas often wind up historical anecdotes.  What will happen to these two popular concepts? Snowball Earth Melts:  The idea that prior to the emergence of complex life the Earth was frozen over has been given the colorful title, “Snowball Earth.”  Scientists at Imperial College, London, are questioning […]
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Dinosaurs

New Dinos Found; What Do They Mean?
March 27, 2007
There is often a wide gap between the bones that are found and the stories that are told about them.  As new dinosaur bones come to light, some reporters cannot resist imagining all kinds of things about their lifestyles.  Here are two recent examples.  As a bonus, we’ll add a non-dinosaur reptile story or two. […]
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Early Man

Leakey Manipulated His Apelike “Skull 1470” to Look Human
March 27, 2007
The skull of an alleged human ancestor Richard Leakey made famous in 1972 was poorly reconstructed, claims a paleoanthropologist who specializes in craniofacial biology.  According to Dr. Timothy Bromage of New York University, Leakey employed nonstandard principles while assembling the bones of his “Skull 1470”, giving the face a flatter, more human-like profile.  Many at […]
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Dumb Ideas

Can the Interior Design Itself?
March 26, 2007
Calling all interior designers: has Darwinism rendered you superfluous?  J. Scott Turner thinks so.  He wrote a book called The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself (Harvard, 2007).  It was reviewed by Claus Wedekind in last week’s Nature with the title, “The interior designer.”  This does not imply that interiors need an exterior […]
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Education

Free Speech?  Not When Darwin Is at Stake
March 25, 2007
Radicals get away with saying or doing almost anything on campuses these days.  There’s one “radical” view, however, that even though believed by a majority of Americans, is sure to be met with outrage: creationism.  It doesn’t even have to be creationism.  Just to suggest that Darwin and his views might not be infallible is […]
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Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Monkeys Bang Rocks, Invent Culture
March 23, 2007
The venerable University of Cambridge earns this week’s prize for the following statements in a press release today: New evidence of “human” culture among primates 23 March 2007 Research suggests that stone-banging by South American monkeys could be a socially-learned skill Fresh evidence that suggests monkeys can learn skills from each other, in the same […]
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Health

Lunar Dust Is Deadly
March 22, 2007
A significant fraction of lunar dust could pose deadly risks to future astronauts stationed on the moon, a BBC News report says.  About 1-3% of moon dust particles are too small to be coughed up or removed by the cilia lining the respiratory tract.  These would lodge in the lungs and become inflamed.  As in […]
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Human Body

Questions to Ask a Reductionist Neurobiologist
March 21, 2007
Can the totality of the brain be described in terms of its neurons?  Is consciousness an artifact of the movement of signals in the brain?  Can the complexity of the brain be described in terms of its evolutionary history?  Does the hardware define the software that runs on it? Gy�rgy Buzs�ki attempted to address these questions […]
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Fossils

Missing Link, or Just Jawboning About Ear Evolution?
March 19, 2007
Tetrapod vertebrates (four-footed animals with backbones) comprise a dizzying array of species, both living and extinct.  When is it justifiable to arrange different forms into an ancestral evolutionary sequence, especially when some members are extinct and others are still alive today?  On what basis can scientists claim that a discovery demonstrates evolution?  Some Chinese scientists […]
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Solar System

Did Mars Have a Global Flood?
March 18, 2007
There’s enough ice under Mars’ southern polar cap to flood the entire planet under 36 feet of water, reports Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  The MARSIS radar instrument on the ESA-NASA Mars Express determined that the ice cap is more than 2 miles thick in places.  According to the report on National Geographic News, traces of possible […]
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Bible and Theology

Have Scientists Found the Secret of Aging?
March 17, 2007
There’s a tragic disease that speeds up aging.  Known as progeria (Huntington-Gilford progeria syndrome, HGPS), it is caused by a single point mutation in exon 11 of the NMLA gene.  Children afflicted with this disease look old beyond their years and often die at 13 of heart attack and stroke – essentially, of old age. […]
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Bible and Theology

Can Science Determine if God Answers Prayer?
March 16, 2007
An Arizona State research team has found support for the theory that intercessory prayer works, says EurekAlert.  David R. Hodge averaged 17 studies on intercessory prayer, including some that measured no effect.  His overall result contradicts a Harvard study (2006) by Benson that prayer has no influence on a patient’s health.  Still, he could not […]
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