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Education

Nature Rallies Troops Against I.D. to the Defense of “Science”
August 10, 2005
“President Bush’s endorsement of ‘intelligent design’ has sparked a national debate in which scientists are well positioned to prevail,” editorialized Nature this week,1 with the a rallying-cry title, “Keeping religion out of science class.”  This editorial, along with a news item by Virginia Gewin, “Scientists attack Bush over intelligent design,”2 was prompted by President Bush’s […]
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Genetics

What Do You Get When You Cross a Lion with a Tiger?
August 10, 2005
A liger, that’s what.  No kidding: you get a big cat with a mane and faint stripes that likes to play in the water.  National Geographic News has a special article, with photos, about ligers. This is offered without much comment, just for those who want to learn about something unusual in the animal kingdom, […]
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Solar System

Planetary Wanderings
August 9, 2005
Here are news briefs that are out of this world: Death Star Sighted:  On August 2, the Cassini Spacecraft took the best-ever pictures of Mimas, the little moon of Saturn with a huge crater Herschel that makes it look like the Death Star from Star Wars.  Why this little moon should be one of the […]
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Uncategorized

Biblical Archaeology News
August 9, 2005
One point where theology and science intersect is in the field of archaeology.  Here are a few recent stories that bear on historical claims in the Bible. Pool of Siloam update:  Last fall, the discovery of the probable Biblical Pool of Siloam was announced (see 12/24/2004 story).  In its September-October 2005 issue, Biblical Archaeology Review […]
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Dumb Ideas

History Channel Documentary on Human Ancestry: History or Fiction?
August 9, 2005
The History Channel aired a program called “Ape to Man” Monday evening August 7, alleging that modern science had finally pieced together the solution to the puzzle of human evolution.  Although it included debunking episodes of Piltdown (11/18/2003) and Java Man (02/27/2003), the flavor of the show was that the picture of human origins has […]
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Cell Biology

Body Scan: How Precision Engineering Aids Human Acumen
August 5, 2005
Often the most interesting science stories are the ones about us– how our bodies and minds function.  Actions we perform each day without much thought are made possible by precision engineering, sometimes at the molecular level.  Here is a selection of news briefs about human superpowers. Electrical engineering: We have untold myriads of electrical voltage […]
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Intelligent Design

Origin of Life: Can A Liability Be Turned Into an Asset?
August 5, 2005
Most of us know the Second Law of Thermodynamics (2TD) as the law of decay and disorder, and would tend to assume it would constitute a major obstacle to theories of the origin of life by chemical evolution (see online book); certainly creationists Duane Gish and Henry Morris frequently employed the 2TD skilfully in their […]
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Education

President Bush Votes Yes on ID
August 2, 2005
Asked whether ID was a valid alternative to evolution, President Bush told reporters August 1, “Both sides ought to be properly taught … so people can understand what the debate is about…. Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.  You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed […]
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Solar System

New Planet Discovered Beyond Pluto; Another Has a Moon
July 30, 2005
A 10th planet, the biggest since Pluto was found 75 years ago, has been discovered.  Late Friday, a JPL press release announced the find made in January by Dr. Mike Brown of Caltech in research partly funded by NASA.  The planet, temporarily designated 2003 UB313 until a name is approved, is three times farther than […]
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Uncategorized

Darwin’s Complete Writings to Be Posted on Internet
July 29, 2005
Cambridge University is planning to post online tens of thousands of pages of the complete works of Charles Darwin and the people who influenced him, reported Nigel Williams in Current Biology.1  1Nigel Williams, “Darwin on the web,” Current Biology, Vol 15, R530, 26 July 2005. Bad news for the Darwin Party.  What will they do […]
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Cosmology

Tailpipe Soot: Can It Live?
July 28, 2005
Better stay clear of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH).  They come out of your tailpipe and furnace, line your chimney, and generally are products of unhealthy processes like industrial waste and cigarette smoke.  According to Environment Canada, “PAHs are a concern because some of them can cause cancers in humans and are harmful to fish and […]
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Cell Biology

Cell’s High-Fidelity Proofreading and Editing Explained
July 26, 2005
—It’s unusual to have a story win both Amazing and Dumb awards simultaneously, but the reason will become clear.–ed.) Luisa Cochella and Rachel Green (Johns Hopkins) have published a primer on “Fidelity in Protein Synthesis” in Current Biology.1  This is a good article for cell biology enthusiasts to read, to learn more about the methods […]
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Human Body

Brain Is Faster Than the Blink of an Eye
July 26, 2005
You blink about every 4-6 seconds, says David Burr in Current Biology,1 adding to over 17,000 blinks a day.  Each time the world goes black for 100 to 150 milliseconds, as the eyelids attenuate the light a hundredfold.   Why don’t we see the world like a flickering movie?  We generally perceive an uninterrupted stream of […]
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Dumb Ideas

Life on Mars – and Titan?
July 26, 2005
Life has not been found on Mars, but some scientists, according to National Geographic News, are worried that we are contaminating the planet with Earth germs that will make the search for Martians more difficult.  Speaking of Mars, a report in Science Now claims that Mars rarely got above freezing in its entire history.   […]
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Dumb Ideas

Do Butterflies Evolve Via Team Stripes?
July 25, 2005
A BBC News story is claiming that butterflies split into competing teams when differences in their wing patterns emerge.  Based on a paper in Nature,1 this is supposed to be an example of a rarely-observed mechanism for speciation, called reinforcement: in this case, “These wing colours apparently evolved as a sort of ‘team strip’, allowing […]
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