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Does Evolution Evolve?
August 4, 2004
If phrases like “the conservation of conservatism” or “the production of productivity” leave you scratching your head, you may wear off a few hairs thinking about a paper in PNAS1 on the “evolution of evolvability.”  Entitled, “Is evolvability a selectable trait?”, this paper by two scientists at Rice University considers whether the rate of change […]
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Physical Science

Editorial
August 3, 2004
Rodney Stark (Baylor University) has written an article very critical of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and the other early promoters of evolution, and their modern counterparts, in American Enterprise Online.  Stark claims that Darwin never proved his central thesis, the origin of species, and was well aware of the problems in his thesis even while […]
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Fossils

Worms Didn’t Evolve for 520 Million Years
August 3, 2004
J.Y. Chen and team in China have found another Cambrian fossil that exhibits zero evolution for nearly the entire history of life.  The abstract from the Royal Society Proceedings: Biological Sciences1 reports the discovery of three kinds of sipunculan worm near the base of the Cambrian, which all “have striking similarities to modern sipunculans.”  These […]
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Dumb Ideas

Fish Evolved by Sunbathing
August 3, 2004
A new slant on how the first land creatures evolved is found in New Scientist: sunbathing fish received more energy, and this made them better predators.  In all seriousness, James Randerson writes, Our distant fishy ancestors first hauled themselves on to land in order to warm up in the Sun.  So claims a team that […]
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Mammals

Hire a Gopher to Rototill Your Land
August 2, 2004
We may holler at them when they dig up our lawns and gardens, but pocket gophers are an important part of the ecosystem, say Jim Reichman and Eric Seabloom in a UC Santa Barbara press release.  They change the nutrient availability for plants, among many things: They act like little rototillers, loosening and aerating the […]
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Solar System

Our Solar System Is a Rare Gem
August 1, 2004
As if in time for the upcoming film release of The Privileged Planet (see 06/24/2004 headline), Philip Ball wrote a line for Nature Science Update that would have dismayed Carl Sagan and a host of SETI researchers: “Earth-like planets may be more rare than thought… In cosmic terms, our solar system could be special after […]
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Cell Biology

Gymnastic Enzyme Acts Like Logic Gate
July 31, 2004
An enzyme named vinculin undergoes “drastic” conformational changes, reports William A. Weis in the July 29 issue of Nature.1  Vinculin, with over a thousand amino acid links, is important at membrane junctions for transporting materials in and out of the cell.  It helps cellular “glue” exit the membrane so that neighboring cells can adhere to […]
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Uncategorized

Darwinists Still Writing the Origin of Species
July 30, 2004
A new book on the origin of species has come out.  In the July 30 issue of Science,1 Benjamin K. Blackman and Loren H. Rieseberg review Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr’s new book, Speciation (Sinauer, 2004, 557 pp.).  The reviewers first describe the subject matter: “The last two decades in particular have brought major […]
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Amazing Facts

Your Brain Learned Physics and Calculus Before You Did
July 29, 2004
Tilt your head to the right while moving to the left.  The neurons in your brain just solved Newton’s equations of motion, and performed complex vector calculus equations almost instantaneously.  That’s what four neurologists Washington University of Medicine (St. Louis, MO) essentially claimed in Nature July 29,1 describing how your brain interprets the information coming […]
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Astronomy

Solar Systems Defy Theories
July 29, 2004
Stuart Ross Taylor (Australian National University, Canberra) feels left behind.  The astronomers have their nice, neat H-R diagrams to explain stars, but no such diagram exists for planetary scientists.  Our hodgepodge collection of planets, moons and small bodies defies classification, to say nothing of the extrasolar planets that have been discovered so far, mostly in […]
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Fossils

Cambrian Explosion Explained, or Explained Away?
July 29, 2004
James Valentine, an authority on early fossils, has just published a new 600-page book on the Cambrian explosion with the Darwinesque title, On the Origin of Phyla (U. of Chicago Press, 2004).  Stefan Bengtson (Swedish Museum of Natural History) reviewed it in the July 29 issue of Nature.1  He points out that “Darwin wisely called […]
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Amazing Facts

Spaghetti in a Basketball: How the Cell Packs DNA for Controlled Access
July 28, 2004
The beginning sentence of an article in Current Biology1 can’t help but grab your attention: Imagine trying to stuff about 10,000 miles of spaghetti inside a basketball.  Then, if that was not difficult enough, attempt to find a unique one inch segment of pasta from the middle of this mess, or try to duplicate, untangle […]
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Education

In the Last Days There Shall Be Scoffers
July 28, 2004
Current Biology this week contains two entries either attacking creationism or exalting Charles Darwin.1,2  Nigel Williams reports on the 100th birthday of Ernst Mayr (see 07/02/2004 headline), and his “tireless campaign against creationism”: Ernst Mayr, the renowned evolutionary biologist and champion of Darwin, celebrated his 100th birthday earlier this month by leading a scathing attack […]
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Awards

Modern Cosmology Goes Schizophrenic
July 27, 2004
According to Charles Seife writing in Science,1 more cosmologists are taking parallel universes seriously.  This is a consequence of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, one possible mathematical solution to the effects of quantum “weirdness.”  If you think our headline is too harsh, read Seife’s opening in a Rod Serling voice while playing the […]
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Solar System

Solar System Update
July 27, 2004
What’s happening at Mars and Saturn?  In this golden age of planetary science, the extraordinary has become commonplace.  Let’s check in and see what the spacecraft have found lately. Mars.  The Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still going strong, well past their nominal mission.  Despite a few minor problems (and decreasing sunlight as […]
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