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Amphibious Assault Against Gradualism

January 10, 2007

A State of the Salamander Address was printed in PNAS recently.1 An international group of scientists looked for evolutionary ancestry and “Global patterns of diversification in the history of modern amphibians.” It would seem Mr. Darwin has a bit of frog in his throat: The fossil record of modern amphibians (frogs, salamanders, and caecilians) provides […]

Mammals

Are Evolutionists Converging on a Story of Vertebrates?

January 10, 2007

Here’s what the Linnean Society said in 1909, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species, about the rise of vertebrates (fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals): “When we return home and our friends gleefully enquire, ‘What then has been decided as to the Origin of Vertebrates?’, so far we seem to have no reply […]

Origin of Life

Dreams of Planetary Oceans Dry Up

January 9, 2007

Astrobiologists like oceans. The vision of life evolving on Earth in a primordial soup drives the quest to find liquid on other worlds. It doesn’t have to be liquid water: just liquid that stimulates the imagination with visions of exotic life. Two solar system bodies once considered prime candidates for ocean front property, though, have […]

Dumb Ideas

New Scapegoat for Your Golf Score: Evolution

January 9, 2007

Stanford scientists are blaming evolution for our difficulty at golf, according to The Stanford Daily. Working with rhesus monkeys, the researchers found that primate brains are too adaptable to changing conditions to become good at a repetitive tasks. “One possible explanation for the observation is that evolution favored predators who could improvise, as they never […]

Politics and Ethics

Non-Embryonic Stem Cells Found in Amniotic Fluid

January 9, 2007

A vast source of possibly pluripotent stem cells without ethical problems has been discovered in amniotic fluid by scientists at Wake Forest University. Ronald Green of Dartmouth is hoping the science pans out, according to National Geographic News. He said, “We are very much in need of ‘ethically universal’ lines [of stem cells] that anyone […]

Amazing Facts

Woodpecker Heads Absorb Shocks

January 9, 2007

Pounding a tree with your head 12,000 times a day would tend to give one a headache, but for woodpeckers, it’s all in a day’s work. How do they manage? Corey Binns on Live Science interviewed Ivan Schwab (UC Davis) who explained some of the specialized adaptations in a woodpecker head: thick muscles, spring-like bones, […]

Dumb Ideas

Mars Life With Bleached Hair

January 8, 2007

Mars has hydrogen peroxide. Bombardier beetles use peroxide. So maybe the Viking landers in 1976 didn’t find life, because they didn’t look for peroxide-based life. That’s the essence of the reasoning in an Associated Press story circulating on the net (see Breitbart.com). Reporter Seth Borenstein earns Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week for […]

Education

Is Legal Hammerlocking the Way to Win a Scientific Controversy?

January 6, 2007

The cartoon stereotype of a scientist as an unbiased truth-seeking nerd wearing a white lab coat is hard to reconcile with some recent events. Not that the cartoon stereotype was ever realistic, but the row over Darwinism vs Intelligent Design (ID) shows just how biased and unethical certain people and organizations can behave in support […]

Cell Biology

Are Cellular Motors Related by Evolution?

January 5, 2007

Just because two things go round and round, does that make them related by common ancestry? A Japanese team thinks so. A bacterial flagellum rotates (06/04/2002). So does ATP synthase, though it is about 10 times smaller (04/30/2004). Publishing in PNAS,1 these researchers looked for a relationship, and noted that these two motors bear some […]

Bible and Theology

SETI: A Systematic Theology

January 4, 2007

Thick books on systematic theology usually include sections about creation, anthropology, and eschatology. Those sections are also present in condensed form in an article by Adrian Brown of the SETI Institute at Space.com. As for origins, Darwinian materialism was implicit passim and needed no elaboration. As for anthropology, he said man is like a god, […]

Bible and Theology

Article: What Hath Galileo Wrought?

January 4, 2007

For the PhysicsWeb site, philosopher and historian Robert B. Crease (State U of NY at Stony Brook) wrote a “Critical Point” article called “The Book of Nature.” He discusses Galileo’s contention that there is a Book of Nature separate from the Book of Scripture that can be investigated on its own through the language of […]

Amazing Facts

This Bacterium Moves Like a Tank

January 3, 2007

Mark McBride (U of Wisconsin) has been trying for a decade to figure out how a gliding bacterium glides. His conclusion: the microbe has tire treads like a conveyor belt that make it roll over a variety of surfaces, like an all-terrain vehicle. According to a U of Wisconsin press release, the Department […]

Dating Methods

Precambrian Pods Promoted to Pleistocene (!)

January 3, 2007

The bulletin of the Geological Society of America started 2007 with a bang. (Geeks sometimes refer to the exclamation point as a “bang”.) It’s not often one sees an exclamation point in the title of a scientific paper, but the bang in one by Donald R. Lowe (Stanford) and Gary R. Byerly (Louisiana State)1 conveys […]

Amazing Facts

Human Endurance: Is It Evolutionary?

January 2, 2007

Some people are gluttons for punishment. Many a couch potato is probably content to watch an Ironman or Ultramarathon on HDTV from a recliner, but the ones who take part in the grueling endurance contests gaining popularity illustrate some human capabilities scientists are only beginning to understand. Nature1 described one called the Primal Quest adventure […]

Genetics

In Science and Politics, Expect the Unexpected

December 29, 2006

Two findings reported this month illustrate how science changes. Paradigms and policies can have their scientific underpinnings yanked out from under them, causing both consternation and opportunities for new ways of thinking. Bring back the acid rain: Pick your poison: acid rain or global warming. Acid rain was the bogeyman of the 1980s, leading to […]

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