VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Cosmology

Cosmology Mavericks Turn On the Red Light
December 6, 2004
According to the majority of astronomers, redshifts are “cosmological”: that is, they represent the effect on spectral light of the expansion of the universe.  A minority group of astronomers, however, claims otherwise, that at least a component of redshift represents intrinsic motion effects of rapidly moving objects irrespective of cosmic expansion.  For evidence, they point […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

SETI Researcher Thinks Big: Send Internet Smut to the Aliens
December 5, 2004
Seth Shostak (SETI Institute), in an article on Space.Com, answers the question, “What do you say to an extraterrestrial?”  He said we no longer need to limit ourselves to short messages like “What hath God wrought?”,* the phrase Samuel F. B. Morse sent with the first telegraph.  The bandwidth we have available now is huge, […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Did Life Begin as “Failed Mineralogy” on the Seafloor?
December 3, 2004
A geologist with a lot of bluff and bluster makes the origin of life sound easy, but gets nailed by direct questions.
CONTINUE READING
Solar System

Mars Opportunity for Life Must Tolerate Salty Acid
December 3, 2004
The first slew of scientific papers from the Mars Exploration Rover mission appeared in Science Dec. 3,1 with the focus of interest on Opportunity’s evidence for past water at Meridiani, because Spirit found only “volcanic rock rubble and inorganic soils” in the presumed lakebed at Gusev Crater. Jeffrey Kargel (U.S. Geological Survey) sums up the […]
CONTINUE READING
Politics and Ethics

The Politics of Academic Scientists: Democrats Vastly Outnumber Republicans
December 2, 2004
A news item in Science1 entitled “Academia as a ‘One Party’ System” will probably attract the attention of conservative talk show hosts: Universities in the United States are very keen on fostering “diversity” as long as it’s not ideological diversity, according to the National Association of Scholars (NAS), a conservative group of academics.  Last year […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

Archaeology Is Hindered by Evolutionary Assumptions
December 1, 2004
Why was a complex village uncovered in Uruguay called “unexpected”?  Peter W. Stahl (anthropology, Binghamtom U.) asks the question in the Dec. 2 issue of Nature:1 Evidence of unexpected complexity in an ancient community in Uruguay is a further blow to the conventional view of prehistoric development in marginal areas of lowland South America.   […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Blurs
December 1, 2004
How was National Geographic able to publish an artist’s reconstruction of Homo floriensis (aka Hobbit Man) the same day Nature published the find? (See 10/27/2004 headline).  Martin Kemp (U. of Oxford, UK) explains in the Dec. 2 issue1 how Peter Schouten, an artist, got the gig: Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum …. […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Candidates Vie for Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week
November 29, 2004
Contributions for the weekly prize sometimes come in as numerous as contestants at the Boston Marathon.  You can send in your contributions or vote on the following: Evolution as sculptor:  Sid Perkins, in Science News, submitted three entries in an article on penguin evolution: Early in penguin evolution, the bones, especially in the wings and […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Origin-of-Life Expert Jokes about Becoming a Creationist
November 5, 2004
Chemist admits problems in chemical evolution are so hard, he is tempted to become a creationist.
CONTINUE READING
Issues

Will it Become Unlawful to Think Critically?
October 29, 2004
The legality of disclaimers in biology textbooks will be decided by a U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Georgia.  A judge will hear the case Nov. 8 about stickers the Cobb County school board put in the books that say, “This textbook contains material on evolution.  Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin […]
CONTINUE READING
Biology

Platypus Has 10 Sex Chromosomes
October 29, 2004
The duck-billed platypus has thrown another curveball at evolutionary theory.  Long puzzling to phylogenists for its mosaic of features that make it seem part mammal, bird and reptile, it has now revealed a genome with 10 sex chromosomes – 10 X in the female, and 5 X plus 5 Y in the male.  Moreover, the […]
CONTINUE READING
Terrestrial Zoology

“Evolution Stories Are Subtle and Complex” – Truth or Euphemism?
October 29, 2004
A worm brain has photoreceptors similar to those in humans.  What does it mean?  Elizabeth Pennisi in Science1 sets the stage, commenting on work by Arendt et al. in the same issue,2 “Ciliary Photoreceptors with a Vertebrate-Type Opsin in an Invertebrate Brain.”  One might think this demonstrates common ancestry, but Pennisi explains that it’s not […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

How Plants Wax Their Leaves
October 27, 2004
Plants have a waxy coating on their leaves, some more and some less, a fact many gardeners may notice without much thought.  A recent paper by two plant biologists in Science1 reveals that even this seemingly ordinary feature comes about only through a complex process in plant cells.  The waxy coating, called the cuticle, is […]
CONTINUE READING
Intelligent Design

DNA Coding Multiplies in Complexity
October 27, 2004
As if the discovery that DNA is a language translation system was not enough to challenge evolutionary theories, it is becoming increasing clear that DNA is a code operated by another code.  Science on Oct. 221 had a feature on gene regulation, which writer Elizabeth Pennisi termed “Genome’s Second Code.”  She began, “The genome has […]
CONTINUE READING
Human Body

Did Language Evolve by Natural Selection?
October 27, 2004
In the Oct 14 issue of Nature,1 Gary Marcus (Dept. of Psychology, New York University) appears conflicted about how human language arose.  He wants to attribute it to a Darwinian process: If, as François Jacob famously argued, evolution is like a tinkerer who builds something new by using whatever is close at hand, then from […]
CONTINUE READING
Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly"]