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Natural Selection Demonstrated in European Heart-Disease Gene?

September 7, 2004

Stephen Wooding (U. of Utah) is elated. He sees an “exciting trend” in genetic research that might, finally, demonstrate positive natural selection acting on a gene with a clear phenotypic effect (measurable outward benefit). Writing in the Sept. 7 Current Biology,1 he mentions a few recent papers suggesting this connection, but focuses particularly on one […]

Early Man

Step Aside, Lucy; Your Distant Ancestor Walked Upright, Researchers Claim

September 3, 2004

Penn State researchers are trying to scoop the coveted title of “discoverers of the first upright-walking hominid” with a CT scan of their champion, Orrorin (see 02/23/2001 headline). They have the ball and socket joint of the specimen (thought to be like a chimpanzee) and a bit of the bony neck that connects the ball […]

Darwin and Evolution

Darwin’s Finches: Researchers Tweak the Beak

September 3, 2004

Every once in awhile, a new angle on Darwin’s finches (an icon of evolution) appears in print. Peter and Rosemary Grant, who have devoted their life to studying everything possible about these related species of birds that inhabit the Galápagos Islands – only to find that evolutionary changes are reversible (see 04/26/2002 headline) – have […]

Origin of Life

Pop Goes the Fatbubble Theory for the Origin of Life

September 3, 2004

This weird theory pops faster than the bubbles it describes as our ancestors.

Politics and Ethics

Letter: The Case Against Embryonic Stem Cell Research

September 3, 2004

Sometimes the letters to the editor are the most interesting parts of a magazine. Read what John T. Durkin says about embryonic stem cell research in response to an April letter by another scientist: In his Letter “Human being redux” (16 April, p. 388),2 M. S. Gazzaniga constructs his defense of human embryonic stem cell […]

Uncategorized

Creationist-Hating Evolutionist Chides Darwin Bulldogs

September 2, 2004

Steve Jones (Galton Laboratory, University College, London) wrote a book review in Nature this week1, that, while witty, leaves the reader wondering what he really thinks. One thing is clear: he hates creationists with a vengeance– In a recent magazine poll, Richard Dawkins, with his trademark hobbit smile, was voted Britain’s top intellectual (a welcome […]

Bible and Theology

SETI Needs to Read, Not Listen

September 1, 2004

What technology would an extra-terrestrial intelligence use to communicate with us? For fifty years, the search has presumed that an ET would use radio waves to announce “we’re here.” Not a good idea, says a professor of computer and electrical engineering at Rutgers. He thinks investors on distant planets would put their money not on […]

Intelligent Design

Are We Lost on a Speck of Cosmic Dust?

September 1, 2004

A new Copernican revolution seems to be in the works, not another “demotion” of man from the center of the universe, but a promotion back to the ancient idea of plan or purpose for our existence. The demotions reached their nadir with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and other books that declared we are nothing special, that […]

Astronomy

Multispectral Galaxy Studies Contradict Theories

August 27, 2004

The latest issue of Caltech’s magazine Engineering and Science1 has beautiful pictures of galaxies taken in ultraviolet by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), and in the infrared by Hubble’s sister, the Spitzer Space Telescope. Combining images of the same galaxy in visible, ultraviolet and infrared is helping astronomers figure out their structure, and as D. […]

Astronomy

Delicate Planet Dance Disturbs Theories

August 27, 2004

Theorists have been thrown a curve ball with the discovery of a planet orbiting a binary star. It appears that the gravitational tug on a hypothetical dust disk would have prevented the possibility of a planet forming around one of its members, but Gamma-Cephei has one. “The formation of a planet in a binary star […]

Fossils

Genes Fail to Reveal Evolutionary Pattern in European Mammals

August 27, 2004

One would think an examination of DNA from fossils would track the animal’s geographical distribution as they evolved. However, a study reported in PNAS1 failed to find any correlation in European mammals after the last glaciation. Hofreiter et al. report: Here, we analyze mtDNA sequences from cave bears, brown bears, cave hyenas, and Neandertals in […]

Politics and Ethics

Adult Stem Cells Might Restore Hearing

August 27, 2004

A report from Marine Biological Laboratory found that adult stem cells show promise for restoring inner ear hair cells (see 08/09/2004 headline). The tests, done on mice, might lead to treatment of hearing loss and balance disorders that affect 28 million Americans. A few days earlier, Jonathan Knight, in Nature, worried over the […]

Fossils

Extinctions Too Complex for Simple Stories

August 26, 2004

Impact theories of extinction are fighting for their own survival. A commentary in PNAS1 warns that extinction theories are more complex than can be handled by a single event, like a meteor impact. At best, they might be invoked as the coup-de-grace in a series of situations. Hermann Pfefferkorn reveals the complexities in the Permian […]

Uncategorized

Kin Selection and Group Selection: Survival of the Fictitious

August 26, 2004

Nature1 provided another case where W. D. Hamilton’s kin selection theory, which proposes that “selfish genes can lead to cooperation and altruism,” is wrong. Kinship does not always lead to cooperation. David C. Queller comments, “a once-heretical theory [group selection] and an unconventional social organism show that the cooperation-enhancing effect of kinship is sometimes negated.” […]

Uncategorized

New Techniques Reveal Deep Sea Wonders

August 26, 2004

Operation Deep Scope has a new Eye-in-the-Sea deep-sea camera system that is revealing amazing animals never before seen, says EurekAlert. A test run in the Gulf of Mexico by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute saw a fluorescent shark, a fluorescent sea anemone, a large squid and some fish that became invisible at certain angles in polarized […]

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