VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Uncategorized

How Old Is This Germ?
June 15, 2009
Rip Van Microbe has awakened after 120,000 years, said Live Science without batting an eye.  That’s strange; human observation only goes back 1/12 of that time max.  The bacterium came out of its suspended animation and grew as if nothing had happened.  “Such vigor is partially due to the microbe’s small size, the scientists speculate,” […]
CONTINUE READING
Politics and Ethics

White Supremacist Murderer Was a Social Darwinist
June 14, 2009
David Klinghoffer on Evolution News and Views has pointed out that James von Brunn, the man who murdered guard Tyrone Johns at Washington’s Holocaust Museum on June 10, was motivated by ideas of natural selection and eugenics.  Klinghoffer provided additional information on Belief.Net with quotes from Brunn’s writings.  He also found hundreds of references to […]
CONTINUE READING
Bible and Theology

Darwin-Only Advisors Hunker Down to Re-Strategize
June 12, 2009
Strict Darwinian materialists are a minority in the United States, yet they enjoy autocracy in educational policy, complete control of scientific institutions, and nearly complete unquestioned support from the mainstream media.  Nevertheless, they have to face living in a country that is predominantly religious.  Once in awhile they suffer setbacks, like the recent changes in […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

This Place Really Has Atmosphere
June 11, 2009
Of all the bodies in the solar system, only eight have a substantial atmosphere.  If you add in those with tenuous atmospheres, you can add in Triton and Mercury, and maybe a few others, till it becomes pedantic to call it an atmosphere if there are only a few short-lived molecules hovering over a moon.  […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Fighter Jet of the Animal World
June 10, 2009
A male hummingbird in its aerial display achieves speeds proportionally faster than a jet fighter with its afterburners on, reported the BBC News – and that’s on nectar and wings, without jet fuel.  The tiny birds even resemble top-gun fighter jets in the pictures accompanying the article.     It took a camera shooting 500 […]
CONTINUE READING
Physics

Planets Can’t Grow Past the Electric Fence
June 9, 2009
In the artwork, it looks so simple: dust clumps into planets that grow into nice, orbiting solar systems – like ours.  It’s not so simple when you try to nail down the real physics.  Planet-building models have to contend with a host of variables and barriers to growth (accretion).  Another barrier was discussed in Astrophysical […]
CONTINUE READING
Genetics

Animals Become Tame with Minor Genetic Changes
June 9, 2009
“In what could be a breakthrough in animal breeding, a team of scientists from Germany, Russia and Sweden have discovered a set of genetic regions responsible for animal tameness,” began a report in Science Daily.  Groups of tame rats and aggressive rats were bred separately, then mated.  Scientists identified genetic regions responsible for the different […]
CONTINUE READING
Birds

Birds Didn’t Evolve from Dinosaurs
June 9, 2009
June 9, 2009 — “The findings add to a growing body of evidence in the past two decades that challenge some of the most widely-held beliefs about animal evolution.”  That statement is not being made by creationists, but by science reporters describing work at Oregon State University that cast new doubt on the idea that […]
CONTINUE READING
Physics

Mudstones Make Ripples
June 8, 2009
Most of the sediments in the world are mudstones – including shales and clays.  Until recently these were thought to form only in calm, placid seas.  Now, two geologists are continuing to show that they can form in flowing or turbulent water.     Two years ago, Schieber and Southard burst a paradigm by explaining […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Tickle Me Darwin
June 8, 2009
Observation: orangutans seem to laugh when tickled.  Conclusion: humans evolved laughter from our ape past.  This is the story being promoted by the science news outlets.  “At least 10 million years ago, our ancestors may have been laughing it up over the latest stone-age prank or bout of tickling,” announced Live Science.     New […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Discovering Health and Technology in the Human Body
June 7, 2009
Why invent technology from scratch, when the body contains substances that point the way to high tech, and can heal almost like magic?  Several articles show that harnessing the body’s own resources is the wave of the future.     Umbilical cords were usually tossed into the maternity ward biowaste can, but now they are […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Bees’ Knees Bridle the Breeze
June 5, 2009
Bees stabilize their flight in windy conditions by extending their hind legs.  Even though this costs 30% more energy and produces more drag, it provides stabilization against turbulence by increasing their moment of inertia (i.e., their resistance to being flipped over).     A team of scientists videotaped the insects flying when blasted by powerful […]
CONTINUE READING
Mammals

“Social Brain Hypothesis” Discredited
June 4, 2009
According to evolutionary theory, the extra processing required for living in social groups should make brains bigger.  Not so, found a couple of scientists who looked into the question.  There’s no general correlation.     According to Live Science, John Finarelli (University of Michigan) and John Flynn (American Museum of Natural History in New York) […]
CONTINUE READING
Politics and Ethics

Science as Tyranny
June 3, 2009
Movements since the late 19th century have employed science as justification for tyrannical ideas.  Ziauddin Sardar wrote in Nature, “Misplaced faith in science, as rational dogma, as the enemy of pessimism, as a theory of salvation, often serves as the glue that binds modernity and fascism together.”1  Could that happen again?     Sardar, the […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Evolution As Catch-All Explanation
June 3, 2009
If you were taught a precise definition of neo-Darwinism in school, it doesn’t seem to matter to many evolutionists in the media.  In practice, the word “Evolution” seems to act as a catch-all category for explaining anything and everything – whether or not random mutation and natural selection were involved.  Some purpose and design can […]
CONTINUE READING
Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly"]