VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Amazing Facts

How Your Joints Auto-Lubricate Themselves
December 7, 2006
Motion sets up an automated process that produces more lubricant for the joints, scientists at UC San Diego found.  EurekAlert explains how shear forces on cartilage stimulated it to produce proteoglycan 4, which secretes joint fluid where it coats and lubricates cartilage surfaces.  This way, the fluid is produced according to the need of the […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Darwin Stars at the Galaxy, by Universal Pictures
December 7, 2006
A press release from the European Southern Observatory asks, “Do Galaxies Follow Darwinian Evolution?”  One may wonder how stars, which do not bear children, can be considered progeny of Charles Darwin.  They explain: The ‘nature versus nurture’ debate is a hot topic in human psychology.  But astronomers too face similar conundrums, in particular when trying […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

The Physics of Gecko Toes
December 6, 2006
Why would anyone want to know the details of physical forces when gecko feet walk on glass?  Here’s why: “The results have obvious implications for the fabrication of dry adhesives and robotic systems inspired by the gecko’s locomotion mechanism.”  A team of scientists from Santa Barbara and China watched gecko toes peel off glass and […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Mars Waterpark a Booming Place
December 6, 2006
Two surprises about Mars came from NASA this week: (1) water may be flowing today down gullies in places (NASA press release), and (2) meteorites are still hitting the surface (NASA press release).  The water evidence comes from fresh deposits downslope of a gully on a crater wall.  One photo in the second article shows […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Darwin Missed the Beetle Can Opener Trick
December 5, 2006
You know those big horns on rhinoceros beetles?  They’re not just for showing off.  Scientists at Indiana University found a “surprising function” for them.  It turns out “horned beetles use their young horns as a sort of can opener, helping them bust out of thick larval shells.”  The function of horned beetles’ wild protrusions has […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Evolution as Inventor
December 5, 2006
This week’s award goes to Gines Morata, a research professor in Spain, who was interviewed in Current Biology.1  He gives us a glimpse into his biology classes: I often tell my students that they do not have to invent anything; in biology everything has already been invented.  What they have to do is find out […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

Why Are We Here? Because We’’re Not All There
December 4, 2006
The anthropic principle survived another criticism.  Charles Q. Choi on Space.com reported on a critique by two physicists who think the cosmological constant is not so finely tuned.  In the end, the argument was shot down.  The story, asking “Why Are We Here?” was picked up by Fox News. Watch the new film The Case […]
CONTINUE READING
Health

How Stem Cell Reporting Can Blur Ethics
December 2, 2006
“The potential of stem-cell technologies to revolutionize medical care is causing great excitement among biologists and the general public,” Nature reported Nov 30.1  “ Recent studies on embryonic and adult stem cells, coupled with advances in our understanding of how they can be coaxed into forming particular cell types and tissues, have improved the prospects […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

How Does the Emperor Penguin Dive So Deep?
December 1, 2006
Using a small recorder mounted on an emperor penguin, researchers at Scripps Institute measured the bird diving as deep as 1,800 feet – six times the depth any human has survived unassisted.  This is much deeper than scientists had expected.  Live Science surmises that if we could figure out how they do it without getting […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

SETI a Descendant of OOL
November 30, 2006
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) may seem a different subject than origin of life (OOL), but researchers in both depend on each other’s assumptions.  The common bond is illustrated in a SETI article on Space.com today.  Devon Burr of the SETI institute wrote an article not about intelligent aliens trying to broadcast signals to […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

The Nature of Cellular Tech
November 30, 2006
For molecule-size entities working in the dark, cellular machines seem pretty clever.  Here are some tricks they perform day and night to keep life functioning, described this month in Nature and PNAS.  Cell biology is sounding more and more like a mixture of Popular Mechanics and Wired. Energy balancing act:  Cells have to use oxygen […]
CONTINUE READING
Politics and Ethics

Evolutionary Ethics Teeters on Brave New World
November 29, 2006
What happens when science pursues whatever it can do, unfettered by moral standards?  Three recent news stories should cause all futurists to ponder the ramifications: A BBC News story this month asked, “UK scientists are seeking permission to place human nuclei into animal eggs in a bid to create stem cell lines.  Why do researchers […]
CONTINUE READING
Human Body

Male Nipples: Two Views
November 28, 2006
Is there a beachgoer who has not wondered why men have nipples?  Since Live Science brought it up, let’s use this as a case study on how evolutionists and creationists explain things. The Evolutionist View:  Live Science claims we all start out as females in the womb, and only after about 60 days the testosterone […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Little Animals, Big Technologies
November 28, 2006
You can’t always say bigger is better.  In the animal world, some of the smallest critters have capabilities that belie their size and compare well with their less dimensionally-challenged brethren.  Bee secure:  Honeybees are being trained to sniff bombs.  Really.  Read all about it in a press release from Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Bees were […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

ID Support from Unlikely Quarters
November 27, 2006
While Nature 11/24 described intelligent design (ID) as a threat to science, support for it came from two new scientific books reviewed in the same issue.  Both of them, while not using the phrase intelligent design, deal with concepts that imply science must reach beyond material causes. Just right universal soup:  Jim Al-Khalili (U of […]
CONTINUE READING
Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly"]