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Biomimetics

Bone Structure Matches Animal Size
March 10, 2011
The bigger the animal, the more weight it has to carry.  How can large animals maintain strong bones without making them heavier?  It turns out all animals have struts in their bones called trabeculae, but the larger the animal, the fewer, stronger, and farther apart are the struts.  This new finding is leading to ideas […]
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Cosmology

Young Galaxy Cluster Already Mature
March 9, 2011
“Isn’t that special.”  The remark, in common parlance, is a generic way of avoiding a judgment call.  When astronomers were confronted with the sight of a galaxy too mature for its age, Space.com reported the response: “And that makes it special, researchers said.”     The headline was, “Surprise!  Ancient Galaxy Cluster Still Looks Young.”  […]
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Education

Word Choice Affects Scientific Impact
March 8, 2011
The emotional reaction to scientific ideas can change depending on the words used.  Can words manipulate public opinion?     “Wording matters,” said Jonathon Schuldt [U of Michigan] in a press release posted on PhysOrg.  His team found that opinion polls yielded a 16% difference among Republicans depending on whether they were asked if global […]
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Physics

Enceladus Geyser Heat Much Higher Than Thought Possible
March 7, 2011
The Enceladus problem – accounting for the heat source of a tiny moon of Saturn – just jumped by more than an order of magnitude.  “Cassini Finds Enceladus Is a Powerhouse,” reported Jet Propulsion Laboratory today.  “Heat output from the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is much greater than was previously thought possible,” […]
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Amazing Facts

You Have Electronic Skin
March 7, 2011
Your skin has resistance with memory.  That makes it like a memristor, researchers at the University of Oslo are saying.  A memristor is a device that remembers the last current it experienced, and varies its resistance accordingly.     New Scientist explained what they found: They found that when a negative electrical potential is applied […]
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Origin of Life

Alien Life in Meteorites Claimed
March 6, 2011
After scrutinizing rare meteorites for over a decade, a NASA astrobiologist decided to go with his announcement: he may have found alien life.  Fox News began his story, “We are not alone in the universe – and alien life forms may have a lot more in common with life on Earth than we had previously […]
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Mind and Brain

Is the Mind a Computer?
March 5, 2011
After a computer named Watson beat two contestants on Jeopardy last month, people are asking if the human mind is becoming obsolete.  What are the similarities and differences between gray matter and deep blue?     PhysOrg asked, “Machines beat us at our own game: What can we do?”  For one thing, they should have […]
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Uncategorized

What Scientists Don’t Know and How They Don’t Know It
March 4, 2011
In light of another huge science scandal, questions rise about what scientists know.  Several recent stories cast doubt on the infallibility of the scientific method – and even the ability of scientific inquiry to solve some mysteries. Fraud exposed:  92 peer-reviewed papers published over a decade, now found out to be fraudulent?  How is that […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Daffy Daffodil Darwinism
March 3, 2011
The daffodil flower has an extra part.  This can only mean it evolved.  That’s what science reporters are saying, leading some readers to wonder how they got there from here.     Most flowers are made of petals, sepals, carpels and stamens, but the distinctive trumpet-shaped corona of the daffodil seems unrelated.  The BBC News […]
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Amazing Facts

Go to the Cell, Thou Sluggard
March 2, 2011
Solomon ordered the lazy man, Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise (Proverbs 6:6).  Today, he would probably tell lazy materialists needing wisdom to consider the cell.  Several recent scientific papers and news stories illustrate why materialism faces a stiff challenge from design features found in the fundamental units of […]
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Uncategorized

Taking Control of Natural Selection
March 1, 2011
Are humans evolving?  If so, should they?  Two recent articles asked these questions as if natural selection is something we should no longer allow to push us around.  We should take control of it for our own good.  But then, it wouldn’t be natural selection, would it?     On the BBC News, Olly Bootle […]
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Amazing Facts

Amazing Animals
February 28, 2011
Three recent articles about amazing animals and fossils deserve entries of their own, but due to lack of time, will be corralled here lest, like strays, they wander off. Turtle navigation:  Wired Science has a beautiful photo of a marine turtle in an article about how they achieve a difficult navigational skill: determining longitude from […]
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Media

Philosophy Roundup
February 27, 2011
Philosophy of science is a broad discipline incorporating many sub-disciplines such as intellectual history, sociology, ethics, rhetoric, logic, demarcation of science from pseudoscience, classification, discovery, verification, explanation and more.  A dozen recent news stories discussed some of these topics. Medical ethics:  PhysOrg reproduced an AP story about medical research on humans in the US in […]
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Intelligent Design

Habitable Zones Constrained by Tides
February 26, 2011
The idea of a circumstellar habitable zone – a radial range around a star where an earth-like planet could support life – may be too simplistic.  Science Daily reported that “Tides can render the so-called ‘habitable zone’ around low-mass stars uninhabitable.”  Astronomers at the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam studied the effects of tides on planets around […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Evolutionists Turn Misses into Wins
February 25, 2011
Evolutionists have evolved a skill by design – the ability to turn falsification into confirmation.  It’s a kind of philosophical judo, or parry, that can turn the energy of a criticism into a win for Darwin.  Convergent turnarounds:  A good example of an evolutionary parry can be seen in a post on Science Daily entitled, […]
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