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Cell Biology

How Useful Is Evolutionary Theory to Biology?
August 4, 2006
A favorite quote by evolutionists is the line by Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”  Why, then, do so many biological papers fail to mention evolution at all?  Indeed, many employ design language, sometimes with a sense of awe.  Here are more recent examples in which the E […]
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Genetics

Team Returns Pseudogene to Junkpile to Counter ID Claim
August 3, 2006
An earlier claim that a pseudogene has a function (see 05/01/2003 story) has been debunked by a team of scientists reporting in PNAS.1  Their reanalysis of the claim made in 2003 “invalidates the data upon which the pseudogene trans-regulation model is based and therefore strongly supports the view that mammalian pseudogenes are evolutionary relics.”  The […]
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Amazing Facts

Bacteria Rule the World – Benevolently
August 2, 2006
We should love bacteria, not annihilate them.  Bacteria are our friends, according to Dianne K. Newman of Caltech:1 As a microbiologist, I’m appalled when I go to buy soap or dishwashing detergent, because these days it’s hard to find anything that doesn’t say ‘antibacterial’ on it…. It’s a commonly held fallacy that all bacteria are […]
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Solar System

More Reasons You Wouldn’t Want to Live on Mars
August 2, 2006
Electric charges in dust devils on Mars may generate toxic chemicals, says a report on Space.com (see also later story posted on National Geographic News). According to two recent reports in Astrobiology journal, “Small dust devils and planet-wide storms – combined with static electricity – may lead to the formation of hydrogen peroxide and other […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Kansas Evolution Battle Heats Up Again
August 1, 2006
Update 08/02/2006: According to a news report on Live Science, conservatives have lost their majority in the primary election for seats on the state school board.  Details are reported by the Lawrence Journal-World.  The winners are gloating that this is a great day for Kansas, said Science Now, but ended by noting that the issue […]
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Politics and Ethics

Journals Consistently Tout Embryonic Stem Cells, Criticize Bush
July 31, 2006
This is not news.  It just bears repeating that the Big Science journals continue to push embryonic stem cell research and criticize Republicans.  The latest case in point was President Bush’s veto of the stem cell bill July 19, that led to a flurry of articles and editorials in the leading British and American science […]
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Dinosaurs

Opal Plesiosaurs, Flashy Pterosaurs and Hot Titanosaurs Inspire Stories
July 30, 2006
Paleontologists continue to dig up bones of fascinating species of long-lost animals.  When it comes to extinct species, the line between observation and interpretation becomes fuzzy, since there is no way to be absolutely sure how they behaved and what they were doing when they died.  This does not prevent scientists from freely speculating on […]
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Cell Biology

Self-Correcting RNA: Is It a Missing Link?
July 28, 2006
A team of Russian scientists at Rutgers discovered a remarkable phenomenon: RNA that proofreads itself during its own synthesis.  The work was reported in Science1: “We show that during transcription elongation, the hydrolytic reaction stimulated by misincorporated nucleotides proofreads most of the misincorporation events and thus serves as an intrinsic mechanism of transcription fidelity.”  It […]
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Amazing Facts

Eye Sends Information at Ethernet Rates
July 27, 2006
Neuroscientists from Pennsylvania and New Jersey calculated the information rate of the eye.  Using guinea pigs (real guinea pigs, not humans as guinea pigs), they came up with a number and interpolated it for humans: In the classic “What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain,” Lettvin and colleagues showed that different types of retinal […]
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Biomimetics

Honey More Effective than Antibiotics
July 27, 2006
A good old nature remedy is making a comeback: honey for wounds.  An article on EurekAlert about research at the University of Bonn states that honey is more effective than antibiotics at healing cuts and wounds.  Apparently the ancient Egyptians knew about its healing power.  Honey rejects dead tissue faster, repels bacteria, promotes more rapid […]
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Dumb Ideas

Genetic Loss Is Evolution’s Gain
July 26, 2006
Three scientists in the University of California system found that “Repression and loss of gene expression outpaces activation and gain” among recently duplicated genes.  Surprisingly, publishing in PNAS,1 they claim the non-intuitive hypothesis that this the mother of evolutionary invention.  From the abstract: Evolutionists widely acknowledge that regulatory genetic changes are of paramount importance for […]
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Amazing Facts

A Second Code Controls the DNA Code
July 26, 2006
More has been discovered about the histone or nucleosome code (see 02/17/2004), a second genetic code independent of the DNA genetic sequence that directs the formation of proteins.  The New York Times (see also Science Daily) reported on work by scientists at Northwestern University who found that the wrapping of DNA around nucleosomes (made of […]
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SETI

SETI: Shut Up and Keep Looking
July 25, 2006
On Space.com, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute answered the critics who think they’re “barking up the wrong tree.”  Well-meaning people send him emails explaining why there is “still no confirmed chitter from the cosmos” after 46 years of looking.  The top four include: (1) aliens use more advanced technology, (2) the Fermi Paradox means […]
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Fossils

Is This Frog Marrow Really 10 Million Years Old?
July 25, 2006
LiveScience reported finding intact bone marrow from fossils of frogs and salamanders.  Without blinking an eye, reporter Ker Than croaked that the marrow is ten million years old.  He compared it with the intact soft tissue and blood cells found in a T. rex specimen last year (see 02/22/2006, 06/03/2005, 03/24/2005), and said, The discovery […]
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Amazing Facts

Titan’s Land-o’-Lakes Found
July 24, 2006
The Cassini spacecraft has found features that look like methane lakes in the northern latitudes of Titan (see JPL press release).  The large dark patches, some about 30 miles across with rounded edges, appear to be associated with fluid channels.  Radar echoes cannot determine for sure whether the surface is liquid (dark means smooth, light […]
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