2009 – Page 10

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Fire Technology Began Much Earlier Than Believed

August 14, 2009

A team publishing in Science1 claims they found evidence that humans were using fire treatment of stone tools much, much, much earlier than prior dates for cognitive abilities. But they can’t seem to settle on just how early. The dates vary by more than 100%. One date, 72,000 years before the present, is about 50,000 […]

Origin of Life

Comet-Ocean Theory Gets Another Splash

August 13, 2009

National Geographic News gave some halfway-enthusiastic press to another recurrence of a theory that circulates from time to time – that earth got its ocean water from comets. They gave air time to work by Uffe Jorgensen and a team from the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark that concludes “comets were the culprits” in the […]

Dumb Ideas

Evolution of the Knuckle Head

August 12, 2009

An evolutionary anthropologist looked at the knuckles of chimpanzees. Then she looked at the knuckles of gorillas. Then she looked at her own knuckles. Conclusion: humans evolved from tree climbers, not knuckle walkers. Her theory can be read in Live Science, based on a paper in PNAS.1 Tracy Kivell and Daniel Schmitt from […]

Amazing Facts

Crow Fulfills Aesop Story

August 11, 2009

The fabled intelligence of the crow has been tested, and the crows passed. Bird and Emery tested an old Aesop fable and were amazed: In Aesop’s fable The Crow and the Pitcher, a thirsty crow uses stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher and quench its thirst. A number of corvids have […]

Amazing Facts

Protein Function: Its All in the Fold

August 11, 2009

Most chemical reactions involve atoms or molecules bumping into one another and exchanging electrons. Proteins, by contrast, derive their immense functional repertoire from their shapes. Several recent studies explore the amazing potential for strength, motility and catalysis that derives from the way proteins fold. Clots: A picture of fibrin graces an article in Science Daily. […]

Health

Dont Just Sit There; Do Something

August 10, 2009

Inactive people have the most health problems. That’s why the American Psychological Association is warning that sedentary lives can be deadly, according to Science Daily. A speaker at an APA convention called physical inactivity “the biggest public health problem of the 21st century.” Some 25-35% of adult Americans – 40 to 50 million […]

Cell Biology

Did Evolution Create Genetic Proofreading?

August 9, 2009

Protein manufacture in the cell is such a critical operation, there are numerous error-checking mechanisms the cell uses to get it right. One of the most amazing is the careful association of DNA codons with amino acids, and the “proofreading” or “spell checking” that ensures fidelity. How could spell checking evolve? Science Daily […]

Geology

Paper View: A Geology Paradigm Suffers a Paradox

August 7, 2009

A pair of geologists found a paradox in a paradigm. That paradigm is the belief that ancient ocean levels rose and fell in cycles as ice sheets retreated and advanced, and the cause of the cycles was periodic changes in earth’s orbit. They modeled this process and couldn’t get it to work. They couldn’t get […]

Origin of Life

Mars Looks More Hostile to Life

August 6, 2009

The methane Mars produces gets destroyed rapidly. This is leading some planetary scientists to get depressed about the possibility of finding life there. The BBC News, Space.com and New Scientist all reported on the paper in Nature,1 saying this represents bad news for life. In models by Franck Lefevre and Francois Forget, patterns […]

Fossils

Pterosaur Fuzz May Have Boosted Flying Finesse

August 5, 2009

Fibers on a well-preserved pterosaur from Mongolia are unlike anything seen before. Scientists wonder if it gave the animals better control in the air. National Geographic News said the hairlike fibers cover the whole body and part of the wings of Jeholopterus ninchengensis. Normally, such fine details are not preserved in fossils. “It must have […]

Health

Spleen Scores, Darwin Loses

August 4, 2009

Hold onto your spleen if you can. The lowly organ, “known as much for its metaphoric as its physiological value, plays a more important role in the body’s defense system than anyone suspected.” Natalie Angier reported in the New York Times that Harvard researchers found that the spleen acts like a fort for disease-fighting monocytes, […]

Cosmology

Cosmologist Has a Sobering Thought: We Are Forever in the Dark About Dark Energy

August 3, 2009

An evangelist for the standard model of cosmology is having a moment of penitence. He is admitting to himself, and to the world, that “we will remain resolutely in the dark about dark energy.” In a piece in New Scientist, Pedro Ferreira [Oxford] has revealed the vicious circle of assumptions that undermine confidence […]

Dinosaurs

Dino Protein Confirmed

August 2, 2009

An independent study of bone marrow contents from a T. rex that was reported in 2007 to contain fragments of protein has confirmed the claim, reported Science Daily. Seven peptides from collagen, and apparently traces from hemoglobin, were detected. The findings are scheduled to be published in the Sept. 4 issue of Journal of Proteome […]

Uncategorized

Fertile Crescent Disappearing

August 1, 2009

The birthplace of civilization and empire, the Fertile Crescent, is drying up. New Scientist posted a worrisome story that modern Iraq is in dire straits as dams upstream in Turkey are threatening to reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a quarter of their natural levels. This is happening in a land already parched by […]