Blog – Page 400

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Electronic Nose Cant Outsniff Yours

March 19, 2008

Electronic nose makers are smelling your dust, said Science Daily. “Despite 25 years of research, development of an ‘electronic nose’ even approaching the capabilities of the human sniffer remains a dream,” the article said. Biological noses are great at discriminating between volatile compounds. We can immediately sense things that are fruity, grassy, and […]

Uncategorized

Planet Formation: Just Add Water?

March 19, 2008

The Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence of water in a dust disk around a star. Does this mean we understand how the earth, with all its water, formed? Using the Spitzer infrared instrumentation, John Carr (Naval Research Laboratory) and Joan Najita (National Optical Astronomy Observatory) found spectra of organic molecules and water in […]

Early Man

Neanderthals: Random Drift, Not Natural Selection

March 18, 2008

The differences between Neanderthals and modern humans were not due to evolution for bigger brains or anything of the sort. They were due to genetic drift, says an article on Live Science. “A team of anthropologists has compared measurements of Neanderthal skulls to modern human skulls, and argues that most variations among them […]

Amazing Facts

The Gecko in the Flight Simulator

March 17, 2008

It’s a lizard! It’s a plane! It’s Supergecko! Researchers at UC Berkeley (where else) put a gecko into a wind tunnel to watch it fly. News about gecko’s magic feet that allow it to run vertically up glass is almost old hat now (08/27/2002, 01/04/2005). Even a gecko can lose its footing, though, and thereon […]

Bible and Theology

How to Address an Alien

March 17, 2008

How would you like this job: your assignment is to be the speechwriter for planet earth. You are to figure out what our first message is to the aliens – to give them a good first impression as we introduce the human species to the galactic community. “No kidding? What does it pay?” […]

Astronomy

Astrobiology Justifying Itself

March 16, 2008

Is astrobiology a legitimate science? Seth Shostak, director of the SETI Institute, tried to answer that question in the weekly SETI Thursday column on Space.com. He estimates there are “approximately a thousand scientists who would be proud to print ‘astrobiologist’ on their business cards.” Astrobiology still gets a cool reception in some quarters. Shostak likened […]

Astronomy

How to Avoid Dark Energy

March 15, 2008

Who needs dark energy? Copernicus? George Ellis (U. of Cape Town) said we could get rid of dark energy by throwing the Copernican Principle overboard. Writing in Nature,1 he said that dark energy may simply be an artifact of the geometry of space-time. Copernicus did not invent the Copernican Principle. He was just […]

Biomimetics

Animal Feats Inspire Imitation

March 14, 2008

Imagine carrying 850 times your own weight. Step aside, Hercules, and meet the Hercules beetle: the strongest creature in the world. Science Daily said that researchers in Belgium are not just impressed with its show of strength. They are finding inspiration for “intelligent materials.” The Hercules beetle has a shell that is able […]

Physics

Falling Rocks Leave Holes in Science

March 13, 2008

Hard data in astronomy is hard to come by, except when it comes by special delivery – as with meteorites. If there is any class of phenomena that should be well understood, it should be space debris and the craters they form, because the processes involved can be watched in real time. Meteorites adorn many […]

Dumb Ideas

Humans as Lab Rats, or, Can an Evolved Brain Reason?

March 12, 2008

Evolutionary biologists and neurologists use their fellow humans as guinea pigs, performing experiments and drawing conclusions about their evolutionary past. One question rarely asked is how reliable are conclusions drawn from the biologist’s brain that is presumably just as evolved as that of its lab subject. Everyone does philosophy, but some do it […]

Early Man

Were Hobbits Pygmies?

March 11, 2008

More miniature human skeletons have been discovered in Micronesia. These ones, found at Palau and reported in PLoS One,1 are unquestionably modern human, but small in stature – less than four feet tall. They are also recent. Radiocarbon dates on the bones yielded dates between 1400 and 3000 years old. The find was reported by […]

Solar System

Saturn Moons Continue to Surprise Scientists

March 10, 2008

Just days before a long-awaited dive into the plume of Enceladus (see PhysOrg and JPL press release, flyby stats and news release), Cassini found another surprise in the Saturn system: a moon with rings. A Jet Propulsion Lab press release on March 6 reported that the large moon Rhea may have rings – […]

Health

Mr. Clean Is Sick

March 9, 2008

Do you get sick too easily? Did you grow up with allergies? One reason might be your home environment is too clean, says a story on PhysOrg. The “hygiene hypothesis” asserts that our immune system over-reacts to lack of stimulation by turning on itself – producing autoimmune diseases and allergies. It “blames increased […]

Uncategorized

Revolt in the Darwin Camp

March 7, 2008

With minor skirmishes, the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis (natural selection acting on random genetic mutations) has held sway in evolutionary theory since the 1930s. Now, discontent with the pre-eminence of natural selection is leading to a major skirmish between evolutionists to be fought at a conference this summer. Susan Mazur calls this the “Woodstock of Evolution” in […]

Genetics

How to Translate Darwinese

March 6, 2008

A unique culture has sprung up around evolutionary biology. Since evolutionary theory encompasses far more than just change in living species (touching on, for instance, ultimate origins, the nature of humanity and the destiny of the universe), its supporters sometimes get a little carried away in their language. The tendency in science reporting to embellish […]

Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly"]

Electronic Nose Cant Outsniff Yours