VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Botany

Selecting Corn Oil Genes Produces More Corn Oil, but What Else?
February 4, 2005
Breeders have been trying to squeeze more corn oil out of corn for over a century, one of the longest-running scientific experiments ever.  They have made pretty dramatic gains in yield, from 5% to 20%, in 100 generations, says William G. Hill in Science.1  Now also, geneticists have the tools to look for which genes […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Age Estimate for Oldest Glacier Revised Way Down
February 2, 2005
Deposits from Antarctic glacial ice thought to be 8.1 million years old have been re-dated at not more than 310,000 years old, and maybe as little as 43,000, reports a team writing in the Feb. issue of Geology.1  Ng (MIT), Hallet, Sletten and Stone (U. of Washington) analyzed cosmogenic helium-3 and calculated the rate of […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Genes Evolving Downward
February 2, 2005
Those assuming the evolution of eukaryotic genomes has progressed upward in complexity may find the following abstract from PNAS1 startling: We use the pattern of intron conservation in 684 groups of orthologs from seven fully sequenced eukaryotic genomes to provide maximum likelihood estimates of the number of introns present in the same orthologs in various […]
CONTINUE READING
Birds

“Bird Brain” No Longer an Insult
February 1, 2005
“Birds can perform amazing tasks beyond the reach of cats and dogs,” begins an article in the BBC News.  So pay a little respect.  You can still call your boss a bird brain, but had better quickly explain why that is a compliment.  See also the longer article on MSNBC News.     In a […]
CONTINUE READING
Education

Teachers Getting Reluctant to Teach Evolution
February 1, 2005
Cornelia Dean in the New York Times worries that, to stay out of trouble, more and more biology teachers are avoiding the discussion of evolution. Dean quotes someone who claims “the practice of avoiding the topic was widespread, particularly in districts where many people adhere to fundamentalist faiths.”  But why would teachers fear discussing it […]
CONTINUE READING
Education

Editorials Lukewarm to ID, but Not as Hot to Darwin
January 31, 2005
A subtle shift seems to be taking place in media coverage of intelligent-design controversies in school boards across the country.  Darwinists used to be the unchallenged kings of the hill.  Alternatives, whether creationism or intelligent design, were disqualified before they reached the starting gate.  It also used to be “open season” on anti-Darwinists.  No vituperative […]
CONTINUE READING
Cell Biology

Your Motors Are Turbo-Charged
January 30, 2005
Think how fast 6000 rpm is.  It would redline on most cars.  Yet you have motors in your body that make that speed look like slow-mo.     The Japanese have taken great interest in the cellular machine ATP synthase since its rotary operation was discovered in 1996 (see 12/22/2003 entry).  Maybe it’s because they […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Astrobiology: 0 Steps Forward, 3 Steps Back
January 28, 2005
Astrobiology, the science in search of a subject, has major hurdles to overcome in its quest to explain everything from hydrogen to high technology.  Despite being one of the most active interdisciplinary research projects around the world (see 01/07/2005 entry), a leading researcher this week conceded that several promising leads of the past are now […]
CONTINUE READING
Fossils

Bat Theory Strikes Out
January 28, 2005
An international team of biologists set out to write the family history of bats, a story that is “largely unknown,” they admitted in Science.1  They didn’t have much to go on.  “The fossil record is impoverished,” their research confirmed, so they tried to piece together a phylogenetic story by combining all that is known about […]
CONTINUE READING
Politics and Ethics

Medical Professionals Lambaste the Nature of Ethics
January 27, 2005
Nature’s editorial on religion and ethics last month (see 12/09/2004 entry) motivated two medical professionals to write in and give the journal a piece of their mind.1  Apparently indignant over the editorial’s patronizing view of religion and its simplistic view of ethics, they made it clear that the scientific establishment is no judge of truth […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Venus Flytrap Is Snappy-Fast
January 27, 2005
One tenth of a second is all the time the fly gets.  The traps of the Venus flytrap, an insectivorous plant Charles Darwin called “one of the most wonderful in the world,” somehow responds to stimuli quickly without muscles.  The entire mechanism is still largely unknown.  A team of French, UK and American scientists set […]
CONTINUE READING
Bible and Theology

Shroud of Turin Debate Reopens
January 26, 2005
The shroud was from the 13th century, concluded earlier researchers, using carbon 14 dating methods.  Now, other experts are claiming the methods were flawed, because the researchers dated a mended patch made by medieval monks.  The BBC News reports a new claim that it is older than thought: between 1300 and 3000 years old.  National […]
CONTINUE READING
Health

Trail + Trail Mix = Health Mix
January 26, 2005
Peanuts, a staple ingredient in trail mix, are “rich in good chemicals,” reports the BBC News.  They have as many antioxidants as fruits, are high in protein and “good” monounsaturated fat.  So take some along and go on the trail, because, according to Southwestern Medical Center, “Exercise helps reduce symptoms of depression,” and EurekAlert reminds […]
CONTINUE READING
Mammals

Hippo to Whale: Missing Chain
January 26, 2005
Despite claims to the contrary,2 whale and hippo evolution are poorly understood.  That’s the gist of a paper in PNAS this week1 that tries to connect the dots between hippopotami (artiodactyls) and whales (cetaceans) and other groups of mammals.  There’s lots of missing dots:  The origin of late Neogene Hippopotamidae (Artiodactyla) involves one of the […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Spinach Leaf: “One of Nature’s supreme examples of nanoscale engineering”
January 24, 2005
Under the peaceful summer sun, plants deal with a life-or-death situation: too much sun.  Those of us with legs can take cover, but a poor spinach plant out in the furrow must deal with the excess energy or die.  Since it usually doesn’t die, what’s its secret?  A process called photosynthetic feedback de-excitation quenching, if […]
CONTINUE READING
Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly"]