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Physics

Asteroid Pi
September 5, 2010
Asteroids are much more diverse than previously imagined.  The Spitzer Space Telescope (now in its “warm” mission after the liquid coolant has dissipated) is targeting about 700 asteroids in a program called ExploreNEOs (Near-Earth Objects).  NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope website reported results from the first hundred studied.  The scientists found that near-Earth asteroids… …are a […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Hierarchical Evolution Proposed
September 4, 2010
Science Daily gave good press to a Dutch grad student who proposed the “next step in evolution” – robots that pass on knowledge and experience without Darwinian natural selection.  Gerard Jagers op Akkerhuis, according to the article, developed a complete and “consistent” system called an “operator hierarchy” that goes far beyond biological evolution; it even […]
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Cell Biology

Embryonic Stem Cell Researchers Reeling from Judge’s Decision
September 3, 2010
Political conservatives have often been stunned by lone judges overturning the will of the people.  This time, liberals in support of embryonic stem cell research are reeling from the decision of a federal judge that halts funding of such research that was recently energized by the President.     Federal Judge Royce Lamberth’s August 23 […]
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Uncategorized

Stephen Hawking His Atheism
September 2, 2010
Science reporters are creating sensationalist headlines about Stephen Hawking claiming there is no God.  His new book has a title, The Grand Design, that sounds theistic but in fact claims that God is not necessary because our existence is a consequence of the law of gravity.     The headlines like PhysOrg’s “God did not […]
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Bible and Theology

Malthusian Maniac Killed Before Killing Hostages
September 2, 2010
James J. Lee took hostages today at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland, but was killed by police before he harmed anyone (see New York Times).  Lee, who authored a website called SaveThePlanetProtest.com, left a manifesto with a list of demands, calling humans “filth” and demanding the Discovery Channel inform viewers that humans were ruining […]
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Amazing Facts

Clever Animals Amaze and Inspire
September 1, 2010
The living world is an endless source of wonder and inspiration.  There’s an octopus that does a convincing imitation of a flatfish (Science Daily, Live Science), and a red crab species that emerges from its lethargic life around Christmas and migrates miles to the sea by the millions (PhysOrg).  There’s a tiny frog that can […]
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Solar System

Exoplanet Hunters Fail Predictions
August 31, 2010
Before the first extrasolar planets were discovered, astronomers had high confidence that other solar systems would resemble ours.  We have rocky planets close to the sun, and gas giants farther out.  Planetary scientists were pretty sure the pattern would hold up around other stars.  Now that we have hundreds of examples to compare, the reality […]
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Bible and Theology

Atheist Doctors Might Kill You
August 30, 2010
Your doctor’s religious beliefs – or lack of them – might have a lot to do with how soon you exit this world when elderly or infirm.  Science Daily reported, “Atheist or agnostic doctors are almost twice as willing to take decisions that they think will hasten the end of a very sick patient’s life […]
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Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design as Entertainment
August 26, 2010
It’s been around a few months now, but OK Go’s music video of their song “This Too Shall Pass” featured an elaborate Rube Goldberg set.  What many viewers may not know about the backstory of the production is that several JPL rocket scientists helped design and operate the contraptions that filled a good-size warehouse.   […]
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Bible and Theology

Who Invited the Scientist in Here?
August 25, 2010
If you envision science in terms of white-coated lab chemists holding flasks, field biologists gathering bird eggs, astronomers peering through a telescope or geologists chipping rocks with hand picks, think again.  Today’s science sweeps everything into its domain, including the human mind, intellect, emotions, will, creativity, and our most sincere beliefs and actions.  When not […]
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Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Graveyards and Arctic Tortoises: Who’s Got the Context?
August 24, 2010
Science articles often go beyond the data.  A jumble of bones found on an island is boring; people want a story of what they were, and how they got that way.  Many scientists and reporters are only happy to fulfill that curiosity.  But are the stories they tell, usually presented as fact, the only way […]
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Solar System

Moon May Be Active Today
August 23, 2010
The old story of our moon was that it was geologically dead.  Except for the occasional meteor impact, not much happens there; the interior had cooled down long ago, leaving it an inert, battered sphere.  That was before the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showed scientists evidence that it has continued to shrink and form new surface […]
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Bible and Theology

Universe Is Doomed
August 22, 2010
Astronomers have decided the universe will expand forever, growing colder and darker, till it ends in a heat death.  According to the BBC News, a study of gravitational lensing by a huge galactic cluster named Abell 1689 determined that dark energy will push galaxies apart till they burn out.  One researcher remarked that the study […]
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Uncategorized

Inserting Evolution into Data
August 13, 2010
Evolution takes credit for a lot of things other scientists might think say nothing about evolution.  Are the statements in these articles about evolution warranted by the observations? Do the RNA:  Scientists at Yale University found an RNA complex that helps proteins to infect cells.  That’s interesting as far as it goes, but Science Daily […]
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SETI

Taking the Sci-Fi Out of SETI
August 12, 2010
SETI might well stand for “Sci-Fi of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence” with its ROI (return on investment) of zero in 50 years of searching (12/31/2009).  In his latest piece for Space.com Seth Shostak did the best he could to distinguish SETI as science, not science fiction, though plenty of the latter will be evident at a conference […]
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