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Will Cosmology Emerge from the Dark Ages?

October 31, 2006

To cosmologists, the “dark ages” were not after the fall of Rome, but the time between the release of the microwave background radiation, and the light from the first stars. In a feature article for the November Scientific American, Abraham Loeb discussed how astronomers hope to shed light on this epoch with new telescopes measuring […]

Origin of Life

Mars Life: Hope Against Hope

October 30, 2006

Good news: the Viking landers (1976) may have been unable to detect life on Mars if it were present. Bad news: the dust devils on Mars probably would kill anything alive on the surface. These contrasting stories recently tugged in opposite directions on hopes to find life on the red planet. A report on PNAS1 […]

Education

Darwinist Anti-Creation Tactics Increase in Fervor

October 27, 2006

The consistent popular support for intelligent design and old-fashioned Biblical creationism is not making hard-core Darwinists any more interested in negotiating or debating. Quite the contrary; as the following stories show, their opposition borders on mania and tyranny. Toad in the hole: A blog named Toad in the Hole expresses some of the fervor of […]

Genetics

Bees Make Beeline to the Headlines

October 27, 2006

The science journals and media were abuzz with honeybee stories this week. We counted 18 press releases and half a dozen research papers related to aspects of honeybees, including the publication of the honeybee genome. Many research labs seem to have gotten into the act of figuring out what makes bees tick. The major stories […]

Birds

Big Bad Bird: Ten-Foot “Terror Bird” Found

October 26, 2006

What would a “terror bird” look like? Imagine a ten-footer, able to disembowel you with a single kick and crush your skull in its jaws. That’s what scientists from the Dinosaur Institute of the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History described in Nature1 after finding the largest-ever skull of a flightless phorusrhacid (‘terror bird’) in […]

Fossils

Fossil Lamprey Changed Little in 360 Million Years

October 26, 2006

Lampreys, fish that consist of little more than a mouth with a tube-like body and fin, don’t usually fossilize well because they lack bones and hard cartilage. A small two-inch fossil lamprey has been found in South Africa and reported in Nature1 (see also National Geographic, Live Science and EurekAlert based on a press release […]

Uncategorized

Key Reference Rock Formed Five Times Faster than Thought

October 25, 2006

Strata in the Niagara Gorge, used as a reference for Silurian dating, formed much quicker than previously believed – in just 1/5 the time, according to a press release from Ohio State. Bradley Cramer and his advisor Matthew Saltzmann used high-resolution carbon isotope stratigraphy to re-examine the rocks in the Niagara Gorge. “Rocks that were […]

Dinosaurs

Dinos Not Killed Off by Meteor, but by Worms

October 24, 2006

Confident speculations that a big meteor hitting southern Mexico caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs appear to be unraveling. Gerta Keller [Princeton, 09/25/2003], a doubter of the story that has been a leading contender for years with its smoking-gun crater called Chicxulub in the Yucatan, has been getting a receptive hearing among geologists with […]

Uncategorized

Quote: Chuck Norris Joke

October 23, 2006

Alleged Chuck Norris Fact: “There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.” What does Chuck Norris himself think of this? It’s funny. It’s cute. But here’s what I really think about the theory of evolution: It’s not real. It is not the way we got here. […]

Early Man

Baby Lucy Makes National Geographic Evolution Cover

October 22, 2006

No regime change is evident at National Geographic since Bill Allen left (see 02/15/2005). The Nov. 2006 is vintage NG with alleged primitive human ancestors on the cover, this time “Baby Lucy” (see 09/20/2006, 10/02/2006). Despite many passionate letters to the editor after their in-your-face Darwinist two years ago (see “Was Darwin Wrong?” 10/24/2004), this […]

Bible and Theology

Darwin Goes Online

October 19, 2006

A website featuring the complete published works of Charles Darwin went public today at Darwin-Online.org. This adds to an earlier site featuring all of Darwin’s correspondence, at Cambridge. Access is free to the public. Students and researchers will be able to search, compare and cross-check different versions of The Origin of Species and other things. […]

Dumb Ideas

Have Darwinian Anthropologists Learnt Their Lessons?

October 18, 2006

Chris Stringer, writing for the BBC News, talked about “Piltdown’s lessons for modern science.” After telling the history of the famous “missing link” fraud, he discussed four “lessons learnt” by one of the most notorious hoaxes in science history. For one, “we mustn’t let preconceived ideas run away with us.” For another, “specimens have to […]

Bible and Theology

The Role of God in Science and Life

October 18, 2006

Big science today may seem to be controlled by atheists, but that’s clearly not the case for many involved in science. Here are two unrelated stories from unexpected quarters expressing support for belief in God: No God, No Scientific Laws: Noted philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright has a new paper coming out that argues that […]

Fossils

Wanted Dead or Alive: New Mammals

October 18, 2006

Do we know all our fellow mammals? Further research has uncovered new furry creatures, fur sure. Furthermore, some are dead and some are alive and well: Weird Tooth: An “ancient mammal that defies classification” has been given a name, at least. EurekAlert reported that Horolodectes sunae, found 30 years ago in Alberta, remains a mystery: […]

Origin of Life

New Titan Ethane Theory Proposed

October 18, 2006

They wonder where the ethane went (see 09/14/2006 and its links). The case of the missing ethane on Titan has only gotten more puzzling since the Huygens Probe landed last year and found almost none, when oceans a mile deep were anticipated. In Nature last week,1 D. M. Hunten (U of Arizona) posited a new […]

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