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Mighty Mouse Has Arrived

November 6, 2007

Geneticists at Case Western Reserve University have genetically engineered mice that “can run five to six kilometres at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill, for up to six hours before stopping,” according to a report on the BBC News. Professor Richard Hanson explained, “They are metabolically similar to Lance […]

Amazing Facts

Winged Migration Grows Up

November 5, 2007

Scientists used to rely on metal bands on birds’ legs to find out how they got from here to there. Now, they can glue tiny radio transmitters to their shoulders and follow them in real time. What happened when Princeton scientists hijacked 30 white-crowned sparrows and took them from Seattle to New Jersey? Age has […]

Amazing Facts

Developing Ear May Have Tuning Fork

November 3, 2007

What tunes up an embryo’s ears before it hears its first sound? A new study suggests that support cells in the cochlea, long thought to be inert, have a role in tuning up the hair cells during development. Experiments by Dr. Dwight Bergles and a team at Johns Hopkins suggest that cells in a tissue […]

Fossils

Cambrian Jellyfish Found

November 2, 2007

It’s official: jellyfish were part of the Cambrian explosion. National Geographic News has pictures of well-preserved jellyfish fossils from Utah that show even the “distinct bell shape, tentacles, muscle scars, and possibly even the gonads.” These fossils are dated by evolutionary standards at 500 million years old, into the period of the Cambrian […]

Cosmology

Myths from Hell

November 1, 2007

Many speak of God’s green earth and rejoice in its beauty, but James Trefil tells us it was born from hell. In his article in Astronomy (Dec 2007), entitled, “Earth’s Fiery Start” he spoke with eyewitness confidence: Earth hasn’t always been a green and pleasant place. In fact, our planet’s infancy was a violent, chaotic […]

Cell Biology

Month-End Close-Out

October 31, 2007

Sometimes the creation-evolution news comes in too fast. Here’s a baker’s dozen from the October shelf, lest they go stale; time to start a new batch for November. Charity begins at worldview: David Cyranoski in Nature (450, 24-25, 10/31/2007) investigated why the level of charitable giving in prosperous Japan is a tenth of that in […]

Intelligent Design

When Bad Religion Confronts Good Science, and Vice Versa

October 31, 2007

A spooky Halloween thought: there are still witch doctors in the world today. If they were harmless spooks, they could be dismissed as kooks, but they can have a devastating impact on the ecology as well as the souls of men. National Geographic had a disturbing story this month about the witch doctors of Uganda, […]

Uncategorized

Amphioxus Is Green, Like Coral

October 30, 2007

Evolutionists may want to combine their song “It’s a long way from Amphioxus” (02/23/2006) with “It isn’t easy being green.” Green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been found in the lungfish Amphioxus, according to a press release from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Why is this not easy? Because it’s a long way: “The researchers say amphioxus’ […]

Dumb Ideas

Crystal Power Is Not Evolution

October 30, 2007

What would Max Planck think? The Institute named after him put out a press release, “Evolution in the Nanoworld,” that claims that synthetic molecules can organize themselves by an evolutionary principle of selection: The automatic molecular assembly and selection steps exhibited by the molecules, which start as random mixtures, demonstrates a fundamental step in the […]

Fossils

Amphibian Imprints Found

October 30, 2007

Full-body imprints of amphibians claimed to be 330 million years old have been reported from Pennsylvania. “The imprints show the unmistakably webbed feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs.” The story in a press release from the Geological Society of America […]

Bible and Theology

Book: Intelligent Design Argument Turns Leading Atheist to God

October 29, 2007

“There is a God,” announces a former leading atheist on the cover of his new book. Antony Flew changed his mind a few years ago partly because of the design argument: the fine-tuning of the universe, according to the blurb on Amazon.com. New arguments by philosophical theists like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne also played […]

Dumb Ideas

Machiavellian Monkeys Made Us Compassionate

October 28, 2007

Love, loyalty, patriotism – all the qualities that imbue a romantic novel with soul – came from Rhesus monkeys acting badly. This is the belief of Dario Maestripieri, a primatologist and Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, according to an article in Science Daily. Dr. […]

Amazing Facts

Fall Colors Have a Function

October 27, 2007

Deciduous trees have an investment decision to make when fall chill sets in: do they send their sunlight-produced nutrients to the roots early, and so risk damage to the leaves from autumn sunlight, or should they spend more energy creating a sunscreen that allows them to produce nutrients longer, and thereby increase food storage in […]

Amazing Facts

Cilia Are Antennas for Human Senses and Development

October 26, 2007

The little hair-like projections on cells, called cilia, have more functions than previously believed. A press release from Johns Hopkins University said that researchers found cilia are important for the sense of touch – particularly, for heat sensation. In fact, cilia are implicated in at least three of the five traditional senses. The […]

Early Man

Neanderthals Have Become Like Us

October 25, 2007

The change in attitude about Neanderthals is almost complete. The formerly brutish missing links were pretty modern after all. DNA sequencing of Neanderthal remains, along with new fossil discoveries, have made this subgroup of Homo sapiens for all intents and purposes the equivalents of us. For example: Talk to me bro: Neanderthals probably spoke languages […]

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