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Cellular UPS Gets Right Packages to Chloroplasts

January 1, 2005

If all your packages were sent correctly over the holidays, consider the job a plant cell has getting 3000 proteins into a chloroplast. Mistakes are not just inconvenient. They can be deadly, or at least bring photosynthesis to a halt. To guarantee proper delivery of components, plant cells have a remarkable shipping system, described in […]

Uncategorized

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week

January 1, 2005

The authors of the second paper in the previous story compared endosymbiosis to mergers of companies, apparently unaware they were comparing undirected natural processes with intelligently planned decisions by human minds: Imagine you are running a successful small business converting carbon dioxide into sugar. Suddenly, you are taken over by a bigger company. They commandeer […]

Early Man

Human Evolution Falsified

December 30, 2004

The title of this entry comes from the data, not from the claims being made about it. The cover story in Cell1 this week has set off a flurry of startling headlines: EurekAlert pronounces, “Evidence that human brain evolution was a special event” and “University of Chicago researchers discovered that humans are a ‘privileged’ evolutionary […]

Cell Biology

Flagellar Oars Beat Like Galley Slaves In Synchronization

December 26, 2004

The Dec. 14 issue of Current Biology1 investigated another mystery in the operation of eukaryotic flagella: Flagella are microtubule-based structures that propel cells through the surrounding fluid. The internal structure of a flagellum consists of nine parallel doublet microtubules arranged around a central pair of singlet microtubules (Figure 1). Force for propulsion is provided by […]

Solar System

Huygens Heads for Titan

December 24, 2004

At about 7:25 p.m. JPL time Christmas Eve, anxious scientists and engineers watching their monitors received bits from 800 million miles away, indicating that the Cassini spacecraft had successfully released the Huygens Probe over an hour earlier, with no faults or problems, right on schedule. In mission control, engineers with Santa hats could be seen […]

Uncategorized

Archaeologists Discover Biblical Pool of Siloam

December 24, 2004

MSNBC News reports that a team of archaeologists working in an Arab portion of Jerusalem believe they have located the pool of Siloam, where according to the Gospel of John, ch. 9, Jesus healed a blind man. In other archaeology news, MSNBC also reported that the Israeli Antiquities Authority is calling an alabaster […]

Cosmology

Galaxy Evolution Explorer Finds Living Fossils

December 21, 2004

Some galaxies are 10 times brighter in ultraviolet than others, and are thought to be “young” galaxies undergoing violent star formation with frequent supernova explosions. In theory, they populated the early universe but should have quieted down by now. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer, an ultraviolet wide-field orbiting telescope, launched April 2003, has just made a […]

Dumb Ideas

Paleoanthropologists Fight Tooth and Nail

December 21, 2004

Ann Gibbons, reporter for Science, seems to enjoy watching the fights about human ancestry. At Science Now, she began a news item about an alleged fossil human ancestor with a joke: How many paleoanthropologists does it take to locate a molar on the correct side of a fossil jawbone? The short answer to this joke, […]

Uncategorized

Da Vinci Code Not Gospel Truth, Says National Geographic

December 17, 2004

National Geographic News took a break from its usual nature articles to discuss the popular novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and examine its historical claims. “No Gospel” in the story, it decides; while giving Brown’s theory a hearing, it concludes there is no evidence Mary Magdalene married Jesus, that they had a […]

Uncategorized

Did Early Islam Promote Science?

December 16, 2004

Nature published a news feature this week crediting a religion, Islam, with advancing science, but saying nothing about the Christian roots of science.1 It begins, Western science owes much to Islam’s golden age – a debt that is often forgotten. To help redress the balance, Fuat Sezgin has reconstructed a host of scientific treasures using […]

Dinosaurs

Cretaceous Temperature Estimates Point Out Flaws in Climate Models

December 15, 2004

Nature1 this week described evidence for high temperatures in the Arctic during the Cretaceous that it termed “astounding.” Based on work by Jenkins et al. that Arctic waters were 15°C, as warm as modern coastal waters off France and Maryland. For a region blanketed in darkness for half of the year, the Arctic Ocean was […]

Uncategorized

Late Bloomer Galaxy Just Now Getting Into Star Formation?

December 15, 2004

According to a story in New Scientist, a “young” galaxy is just now starting its process of star formation. Most galaxies formed more than 10 billion years ago. Those born later tend to be fashioned from recycled gas rich in metals that were forged by previous generations of stars. But astronomers Trinh Thuan of the […]

Dumb Ideas

Did Martians Win the War of the Worlds?

December 14, 2004

In the H.G. Wells version, the Martian invaders with their tripod machines and death rays, wreaking havoc on Earth, were defeated by Earth bacteria. The new scientific plot envisioned by scientists, reported on Space.com, is that the Martians had the bacteria, and invaded Earth with it to either conquer Earth life or spread it onto […]

Intelligent Design

Debate: Should Schools Teach the Controversy Over Darwinism?

December 14, 2004

The San Francisco Chronicle published a written debate between Stanford evolutionist Robert Sapolsky and Discovery Institute fellows Stephen Meyer and John Angus Campbell. The subject is whether schools should “teach the controversy” over evolution. Both articles can be read on the Discovery Institute website. Meanwhile, the ACLU is suing another school district, this […]

Health

For Better Workouts, Head for the Hills

December 14, 2004

Science News1 reported on a study by the American Heart Association that shows hiking in the mountains is good for you. Experiments on people hiking in the Austrian Alps showed that going uphill, the body improves the processing of fats called triglycerides, and walking downhill improves the processing of glucose sugar. 45 volunteers who were […]

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