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Cosmology

Variable Constants Dept.
April 11, 2005
Is nothing sacred?  EurekAlert reported that the fine structure constant alpha may have changed from its once-thought invariable value, based on new observations from the Keck telescope.  “Sacred constant might be changing,” it says.     Another study, by contrast, shows no change in the fine structure constant, according to a press release from UC […]
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Solar System

Titan May Have Erupted Ice Recently
April 8, 2005
Large features on Titan resemble volcanic calderas.  The fact that no impact craters appear on the flows indicate that they are young.  But these are no ordinary volcanoes.  If the findings are confirmed, they erupted ice.     Richard Kerr reported the scuttlebutt from last week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas.  Titan may […]
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Health

Active Adolescents Are Leaner, Fitter
April 7, 2005
The intuitively obvious sometimes holds up to experimentation.  Researchers at Medical College of Georgia found that, indeed, young people who are physically active are less likely to be obese.  Most adolescents need to double their physical activity, the researchers said, preferably an hour or more a day – and it needs to be vigorous.  In […]
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Politics and Ethics

No Excuses: Nazi-Era German Scientists Had Bloody Hands
April 7, 2005
A six-year, $5 million (US$) project in Germany to investigate the extent of scientific involvement with the Nazi regime completed its final report last month, reports Nature,1 with “uncomfortable truths.”  It can no longer be claimed that (1) there were only a few rotten apples involved, (2) the work was pseudoscientific, low-quality work with meaningless […]
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Astronomy

Late Stars Found Early On
April 6, 2005
A press release from the Spitzer Space Telescope team reports that the oldest, most distant galaxies ever seen already had well-developed stars.  It claims that the light has taken 13 billion years to reach us. “It seems that in a couple of cases these early galaxies are nearly as massive as galaxies we see around […]
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Uncategorized

Darwinians Looking for Forgiveness – in Apes
April 6, 2005
Forgiveness, a seemingly distinctive human trait, must have its roots in ape social behavior, believe some evolutionary biologists.  According to MSNBC News, the state of Iowa got a lot of money for researching this topic: Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, lead scientist, said the four-month project studying bonobos [pygmy chimps] will be funded by a $125,000 grant […]
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Cell Biology

Flagellum Described in High-Performance Lingo
April 4, 2005
The bacterial flagellum, a virtual icon of the intelligent design movement, has been studied by many researchers, notably Howard Berg of Harvard, an expert on chemotaxis (the attraction of bacteria to chemical stimuli).  Berg was interviewed in Current Biology1 and talked like a race car mechanic when discussing this molecular machine, though he is not […]
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Solar System

Panel Majority Agrees: Our Solar System Is Special
April 4, 2005
All five observational and theoretical planetary scientists on a panel last week agreed that our solar system is a special place, reports Space.Com.  At the 5th annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Panel Debate, held at the American Museum of Natural History, the topic was “whether our solar system is special, why it looks the way it […]
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Uncategorized

Gentle Darwin and the Evolution of Joy
April 3, 2005
You may not be able to really enjoy a good laugh any more, because the evolutionists are now claiming that joy and humor are just evolutionary artifacts of gene mutations in our animal past.  Jaak Panksepp (Bowling Green U) opens an article in Science Now by twisting the opening words of the Apostle John into […]
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Early Man

Do Neurologists Understand Brain Evolution?
April 3, 2005
Jane Bradbury wrote a feature piece for PLOS Biology recently,1 entitled, “Molecular Insights into Human Brain Evolution.”  Help us find the insights.  First, she marvels on how “humans sit on top of the pile when it comes to relative brain size.”  Then she marvels at how quickly the human brain apparently evolved compared to apes.  […]
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Origin of Life

You Can Help Find Life on Mars
April 2, 2005
Astronomy Picture of the Day pulled a fast one for April Fool’s Day, humorously suggesting viewers might help scientists find water on Mars.  (The Mars in the picture was the candy kind.) The joke was on them, because they got baloney all over their faces with this line: “Finding water on different regions on Mars […]
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Fossils

More Convergent Evolution Claimed for Dino-Era Mammal
April 1, 2005
A chipmunk-size mammal with Popeye-like forearms and beaver-like teeth resembling an armadillo?  That’s how the discoverers are describing the fossil they named Fruitafossor, a small mammal found near Fruita, Colorado and reported in Science.1  They think it dug burrows and ate termites.  Of special interest were the open-root teeth like those of the beaver.  Lead […]
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Solar System

How Well Do We Know Our Moon?
March 31, 2005
Leonard David wrote in Space.Com that Earth’s moon is “still a puzzle” – “luna incognita,” he calls it, hoping for a new corps of discovery to go back.  Surprisingly, the treasure trove of Apollo data has “been sitting around and never properly studied,”  especially since the development of more highly sophisticated analytical techniques.  Carl Pieters […]
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Cell Biology

Your Linemen at Work: DNA Search and Rescue Machine Imaged in Action
March 31, 2005
DNA is amazing enough, but its automatic error-correction utilities are enough to stagger the imagination.  There are dozens of repair mechanisms to shield our genetic code from damage; one of them was portrayed in Nature1 March 31 (see also analysis by Sheila David in the same issue2) in terms that should inspire awe.     […]
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Education

ID in the News
March 30, 2005
PBS aired a segment on the anti-Darwinism controversy in the schools Monday (see PBS transcript).  Ken Ham and Stephen Meyer presented arguments for criticizing Darwin, while Eugenie Scott and others defended exclusive evolutionary teaching.  The Discovery Institute blog Evolution News analyzed the 14:32 minute segment, complaining that 90 minutes of Meyer’s interview received only 30 […]
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