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Amazing Facts

Membrane Switches Keep Your Brain Humming
August 14, 2008
Tunnels with rotating gates and rocker switches – this sounds like mechanical engineering.  It’s the machinery that helps power your brain, reported scientists from UCLA and the Pasteur Institute.     Their paper in Science described the structure of just one of many kinds of membrane channels.1  Cell membranes are lined with elaborate one-way gates.  […]
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Dumb Ideas

Does Cancer Illustrate Fitness?
August 13, 2008
Most people think of health and vitality when they hear the word “fitness.”  Why, then, does an article on Science Daily apply the word to one of the biggest scourges of mankind?  “Scientists from The Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton and the University of California discovered that the underlying process in tumor formation is […]
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Amazing Facts

Cassini Survives Enceladus Geyser Plunge
August 12, 2008
The Cassini spacecraft has done it again – returned some of the most stunning outer planet images ever taken.  Zipping by at just 30 miles over the active surface of Enceladus, Cassini did a “skeet shoot” of high-res images achieving 7 meters per pixel in places – the highest resolution of any shot of a […]
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Genetics

Admissions of Ignorance in Evolutionary Theory
August 11, 2008
For a scientific idea some have proclaimed as a fact no longer in need of proof, and as well-established as gravity, Darwin’s theory of evolution still reveals surprising weaknesses when its defenders speak about the details.  Detecting these weaknesses requires tuning out the media hype, and tuning into scientific papers and pro-evolution journals where evolutionary […]
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Amazing Facts

These Bugs Have the Right Stride
August 9, 2008
If there were an Olympic event for walking on water, the water strider would lead the pack.  Science Daily reported on work by European biologists that show the water bug has perfectly proportioned legs for being able to balance on the surface tension of water: “Long enough to provide maximum weight support but not long […]
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Bible and Theology

Life in Space: Follow the Hot Water, not the Hot Air
August 8, 2008
Planetary scientists have their eyes and instruments on regions of hot water, but speculating too dogmatically about life in space could get you in hot water yourself.     Simon Klatterhorn (geologist, U of Idaho) is mesmerized by the possibility of life at Europa, Jupiter’s ice-crusted oceanic moon.  In an interview by Science Daily, he […]
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Amazing Facts

New Camera Imitates Eyeball
August 7, 2008
Scientists at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have succeeded in manufacturing stretchable optical electronic sensors on curved surfaces.  This will open up a whole new world of new imaging products – inventions that imitate the human eyeball.  The team said this about the eyeball in their paper in Nature:1  The human eye is […]
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Cell Biology

Adult Stem Cells Race Ahead; Embryonics Falter
August 7, 2008
Major advances are being made with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), stem cells reconstituted from adult tissues, while interest in embryonic stem cells (ES) seems to be drying up.     Both Nature and Science reported advances in iPS technology last week.  Nature reported that the number of factors needed to reconstitute pluripotent stem cells […]
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Intelligent Design

Survival of the, Whatever
August 6, 2008
Two articles recently have cast doubt on whether the classic Darwinian phrase “survival of the fittest” fits what happens in nature.     Science Daily reported on work by researchers at University of Texas at Austin that suggests evolution’s products may not always be optimal.  The team speculated that mutations which help an animal in […]
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Biomimetics

Defeat Spam: Imitate the Body’s Defenses
August 5, 2008
Your body’s immune system is inspiring the next generation of email spam-fighters.  The University of Southampton reported that “An algorithm for spam recognition inspired by the immune system will be presented at the first European conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE XI) being held in Winchester this week.”     The idea is that “in the […]
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Media

Phoenix Did NOT Find Mars Life
August 4, 2008
A media snafu has NASA spokespersons rushing to deny that life has been found on Mars, reported Space.com.  For example, Live Science reporter Leonard David said that the White House has been alerted to the potential for new information about life on Mars based on findings from the Phoenix Lander.  The apparent secrecy has teased […]
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Bible and Theology

Scientists Bemoan Research Fraud
August 2, 2008
A commentary entitled “Repairing research integrity” published in Nature June 181 struck a nerve.  Three letters to the editor in the July 31 issue said the problem is worse than Titus, Wells and Rhoades indicated when they said many issues of research fraud go unreported, and suggested principles to fix the problem.     The […]
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Fossils

How Much Is Known About Climate History?
August 1, 2008
Scientific papers on earth history can seem very erudite and confident, filled with jargon and named periods that appear carved in stone.  Every once in awhile, though, a surprise discovery raises questions about how sound their timelines and models really are.  Get a load of this opening to a review by Jacqueline Flückiger,1 an environmental […]
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Amazing Facts

Wet Cave with Fossils Found in Dry Desert
July 31, 2008
The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places on earth – it gets about 1mm of rainfall per year, if that – but scientists just discovered a wet cave there.  Robert Roy Britt reported for Live Science that these desert caves can contain water, and at least one is loaded with fossils […]
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SETI

What’s SETI Got to Do With It?
July 31, 2008
The science news outlets are all posting a story from Space.com about how you can adopt a scientist.  Mark Showalter is an interesting guy – astronomer, scuba diver, amateur naturalist, award-winning photographer, and specialist in planetary rings.  But why was this story posted in the SETI column?     There doesn’t seem to be anything […]
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