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Early Man

Humans and Neanderthals Are One
May 8, 2010
If Neanderthals bred with modern humans, they are one and the same species.  That must be the case according to the most widely-accepted definition of a species: those who can breed and produce fertile offspring.  The news media are abuzz with Science magazine’s cover story this week, “The Neanderthal Genome.”1  Most anthropologists are now accepting […]
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Human Body

Can Darwin Be Rescued from a New Eye Discovery?
May 7, 2010
Scientists find waveguides and noise receptors built into the retina.
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Genetics

Breakthrough: Second Genetic Code Revealed
May 6, 2010
It’s sometimes difficult to assess the impact of a scientific paper when it is first published, but one that came out on the cover of Nature today has potential to equal the discovery of the genetic code.  The leading science journal reported the discovery of a second genetic code – the “code within the code” […]
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Uncategorized

Biomimetics: Design Science Is Flourishing
May 5, 2010
Some research centers appear to be on the verge of a golden age – the age of biomimetics (the imitation of biological design).  Products that will change our lives are springing from designs inspired by studying how plants, animals and cells have solved real-world problems.  Although some of the research mentions evolution, the real power […]
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Cell Biology

Darwin’s Linux: Did Evolution Produce a Computer?
May 4, 2010
How is a cell like a computer?  Some Yale scientists asked that question, and embarked on a project to compare the genome of a lowly bacterium to a computer’s operating system.1.  Their work was published in PNAS.2  As with most analogies, some things were found to be similar, and some different – but in the […]
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Biomimetics

Archer Fish Sees Clearly Up and Down
May 3, 2010
The archer fish, which lives in mangrove swamps and rivers, is able to spit insects off leaves above the water with remarkable accuracy (09/30/2002, 09/07/2004, 10/10/2006).  Scientists have been fascinated by this ability because in order for the fish to calculate the trajectory of its missiles, it needs to take into account both chromatic aberration […]
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Astronomy

Are There Limits to Scientific Speculation?  A Royal Case
May 2, 2010
Question: When does science become like a priesthood?  Answer: When its practitioners engage in speculation on big questions impossible to verify with empirical observations.  Is this what the chief astronomer in Britain is doing?     Sir Martin Rees certainly would not have thought of himself as a priest as he wrote an article for […]
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Birds

Dino-Feather Story Gets Fluffier
May 1, 2010
Xing Xu is at it again, claiming that dinosaur feathers are found everywhere – in China, at least, where the bulk of “feathered dinosaur” claims keep turning up in farmyards.  The latest claim is that “Feather structures in maturing dinosaurs changed as they grew.”  This story is accompanied by artwork showing the critters looking as […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Scientist Sees Evolutionary Sense in Coordinated Complexity
April 30, 2010
An article on PhysOrg tells “A vertebrate story,” and a story it is: the more complex a phenomenon becomes, the more it makes evolutionary sense.     Portuguese scientists were studying the interaction of Hox genes with the development of the ribs in vertebrates.  You can imagine the control that these genes must have when […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Southpaw Explanations Out of Left Field
April 30, 2010
All proteins are left handed.  Some humans are left handed.  Can evolution explain that?  Evolutionists are never known to be at a loss for words when asked to explain anything, provided they are allowed liberal use of the word perhaps.     A new projection theme for the first left-handed amino acids that comprise proteins […]
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Birds

Clock Gene Same in Humans and Birds
April 29, 2010
Science Daily, this “not only sheds light on how our internal annual body clocks function but also shows a key link between birds and mammals that has been conserved over 300 million years.”     Mammals, including humans, have a hormone released by the pituitary gland that controls melatonin levels – known to affect the […]
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Bible and Theology

Noah’s Ark on Mars
April 28, 2010
We apologize for this improbable headline to draw attention to two stories making the rounds: new claims about Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat, and new claims about life on Mars.  Headlines on these topics show up periodically in the news.  What do the subjects have in common?  How do they differ?  Do the most recent […]
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Darwin and Evolution

New Theory on Evolution of Bat Flight
April 27, 2010
How did bats evolve the ability to fly?  Evolution helped them out by providing them with higher energy.  After all, “Flight is among the most energy-consuming activities” in the animal kingdom, said a team of Chinese and Canadian scientists reporting in PNAS,1 so it’s obvious that evolution must have provided the genes to get the […]
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Cosmology

Cosmologist Suffers Paranoid Delusions: Media Promotes His Views
April 26, 2010
“They’re coming to get us, and I’m sure of it, because I know everything.”  What would you think of someone who talked like that?  What if he were one of the most famous cosmologists alive today?  The man is Stephen Hawking – that wheelchair-bound math wizard who talks with a speech synthesizer and once fell […]
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Amazing Facts

To Sleep, To Dream: To Dream, Perchance, to Learn
April 25, 2010
When you have learned a complex task, take a nap and dream about it.  A new study shows that dreaming helps consolidate the memory in your mind and helps you perform the task better next time around.     Science Daily reported on research by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  They tested 99 […]
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