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Politics and Ethics

Nature of Peer Review Undergoing Review at Nature
June 13, 2006
The science cops are on trial.  Peer review, the process that many are led to believe enforces objectivity and validity in scientific papers, has come under fire lately (see 03/17/2006, 02/05/2006, 01/31/2006, 01/09/2006).  In response to scandals and criticisms that the peer review as practiced is no guarantee against fraud, Nature is stepping out into […]
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Dumb Ideas

Can the Origin of Life Be Simplified?
June 12, 2006
Evolutionists looking for a materialistic explanation for the origin of life know that there is a huge gap between a sea of chemicals and a self-replicating cell.  Over the years since the Miller experiment (see 05/02/2003 entry), there have been several approaches trying to bridge this gap.  One has been the RNA World hypothesis, that […]
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Mammals

Domestic Housecat Trees Wild Bear
June 11, 2006
Donna Dickey has quite a watchcat.  This declawed tabby chased a roaming black bear up a tree and held it at bay for 15 minutes.  When the bear slid down to try to get away, Jack chased it, hissing and snarling, till the bear escaped up a second tree.  That’s when Donna called her cuddly […]
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Dinosaurs

Mini-Dinos Found in Marine Sediments
June 10, 2006
Sauropods were not all the lumbering giants we think of; they could be the size of a pet dog (images of Deeno in the Flintstones come to mind).  This came to light from recent discoveries announced in Germany (see BBC News and LiveScience) of adult sauropods smaller than human height, ranging five to 20 feet […]
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Cell Biology

Eukaryote Evolution Proceeded from Complex to Simple
June 9, 2006
As if reprimanding simpletons, three scientists writing in Science1 preached that the old picture of evolution from simple to complex is simplistic.  This is particularly true, they claim, for the story that eukaryotes were born from a blessed union.  “Data from many sources,” they counter, “give no direct evidence that eukaryotes evolved by genome fusion […]
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Amazing Facts

Plant Hula-Hoop Railroads Build Cell Walls
June 9, 2006
Solving a long-standing mystery about how plants build cell walls, Stanford scientists imaged molecular machines traveling along hoop-shaped rings around the inside of the cell.  Publishing in Science, Paradez, Somerville and Ehrhardt proved that cellulose synthase (CESA), a machine that manufactures cellulose composed of six subunits arranged in rosettes, rides like a rail car on […]
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Solar System

Update:  Crater-Count Dating Squabble Unresolved
June 8, 2006
Remember the revelation last year that many craters on Mars used to infer ages may have been secondary impacts from fallback debris? (see 10/20/2005 entry).  Well, a microsymposium on this subject was held in Houston in March, and Richard Kerr in Science1 said that “125 planetary scientists deadlocked over how to apply crater-dating techniques to […]
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Genetics

Evolutionary Trees “Positively Misleading”
June 8, 2006
According to an article in PLoS Genetics,1 there is a fundamental flaw in the way species trees are inferred from gene trees using molecular genetics that is guaranteed to produce erroneous results: Because of the stochastic way in which lineages sort during speciation, gene trees may differ in topology from each other and from species […]
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Amazing Facts

Beavers Achieve Environmental Reprieve
June 8, 2006
In what might be considered an unexpected convergence between geology and zoology, it has been found that beaver dams influence large tracts of land both above and below ground.  “Impact of beaver dams wider than thought” announced a headline on LiveScience summarizing studies by scientists in Rocky Mountain National Park.     The dams take […]
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Cosmology

The Universe Is Made Out of… Fudge!
June 7, 2006
[Guest article]  According to the July issue of Astronomy magazine, the Universe is comprised mostly of fudge – or at least fudge factors, anyway.  The article by James Trefil from George Mason University describes the current thinking among astrophysicists as to the eventual fate of the universe.  Since the Big Bang, there has been an […]
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Amazing Facts

Protein Dressing Room Has Electronic Walls
June 7, 2006
Properly folded proteins are essential to all of life.  When a polypeptide, or chain of amino acids, emerges from the ribosome translation factory on its way to becoming a protein, it looks like a useless, shapeless piece of string.  It cannot perform its function till folded into a precise, compact shape particular for its job.  […]
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Bible and Theology

Update:  Iraq Marshlands Recovering Quicker Than Expected
June 6, 2006
How is south-central Iraq doing?  Recall that Saddam Hussein nearly obliterated, intentionally, one of the world’s premier wetlands (05/01/2003, 02/18/2005).  His fall from power enabled scientists to measure the damage and estimate hopes for recovery.  The outlook was pretty bleak at first.  Now, after two seasons of above-average rainfall upstream, fresh water has again been […]
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Early Man

Hobbit Man, Neanderthal Man Further Scrutinized
June 6, 2006
The positions of two alleged human ancestors in the family tree is becoming clearer, or murkier, depending on whom you ask.  This illustrates the uncertainty and disparity of opinions in this field. Hobbit workshop:  Regarding the diminutive skeletons dubbed Homo floresiensis found in Indonesia, opinions seems to be condensing around the idea they were true […]
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Amazing Facts

Hummingbirds: Small Wonders
June 5, 2006
Do you enjoy watching the world’s smallest birds, right from your backyard?  Susan Healy and T. Andrew Hurly provided interesting tidbits about them in a Quick Guide to Hummingbirds in Current Biology this week.1     There are 330 species of these small flyers noted for their aerobatics and iridescent colors.  Typically, they weigh a […]
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SETI

Researcher Denies SETI Is a Religion
June 3, 2006
Apparently irritated by charges that SETI research is like a religion (see, for instance, the article by novelist Michael Crichton mentioned in our 12/27/2003 entry), David Darling of the SETI Institute has issued a response.  On Space.com, his title was direct: “Of Faith and Facts: Is SETI a Religion?”  The answer was a forthright NO […]
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