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North Star Is Rapidly Changing

June 2, 2004

The North Star (Polaris) has brightened by 150% since Ptolemy observed it 2000 years ago, says the American Astronomical Society (see report on Science Now). If the differences from those in ancient times are real, “these changes are 100 times larger than predicted by current theories of stellar evolution.” Polaris is also a pulsating Cepheid […]

Early Man

Modern Cavemen Found

June 1, 2004

National Geographic News has a remarkable true story about some families that lived underground in the darkness and dampness of a cave for nearly two years in recent times. And now, the rest of the story: they were Jews hiding out from the Nazis. This incredible story of survival in the midst of danger points […]

Education

Academic Freedom Applied Unequally

June 1, 2004

In the June ICR Impact article, Dr. Jerry Bergman tells a tale of two professors. One, a philosophy professor, has full academic freedom to dismantle the religious faith of his students (one of his converts was Michael Shermer, now editor of Skeptic Magazine). The other, a Christian anatomy professor, was forbidden by the courts to […]

Uncategorized

Darwinist Chides Recklessness of Evolutionists

May 31, 2004

The tendency of some evolutionists to engage in just-so storytelling was intolerable to George C. Williams, an influential Darwinian. Throughout his life he called them to accountability. Now elderly, he was recently honored by fellow evolutionists at State University of New York, Stony Brook. Carl Zimmer described the event in the May 28 issue of […]

Astronomy

Young Planet Around Young Star Claimed

May 28, 2004

A star estimated to be one million years old already has a planet in orbit around it, the Spitzer Space Telescope (Hubble’s counterpart for infrared astronomy) has found. Astrobiology Magazine says this challenges old theories. Alan Boss (Carnegie Institute) thinks this supports his disk-instability model for planetary formation, in which gas giants can form quickly, […]

Cosmology

Cosmos Ages a Billion Years in One Day

May 28, 2004

Physicists have found that a portion of the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen reaction thought to participate in fusion reactions inside stars runs two times slower than previously thought. The measurements were made in the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA), a lab nearly a mile underground in Italy that offers more protection from cosmic rays. The ripple effect […]

Uncategorized

DNA: The Mystery of the Ultraconserved Elements

May 27, 2004

As we proceed into the age of genomics, the DNA codes of more and more animals are coming into focus. The genomes of humans, chimpanzees, mice, chickens, dogs, rats and pufferfish have been sequenced so far, and more are planned. Evolutionists expected the ancestry of all living things to be traceable in the genetic code […]

Health

Exercise Your Nerves

May 27, 2004

A team of neurologists from UCLA and duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware found that voluntary exercise improves regeneration of neurons, both for those who work out, and for those recuperating after injury. The abstract in PNAS1 states: Recent advances in understanding the role of neurotrophins on activity-dependent plasticity have provided insight into how behavior […]

Uncategorized

Human and Chimp DNA Compared

May 26, 2004

Dumb Ideas

Can a Cell Improve by Lowering Its Standards?

May 26, 2004

The title of a paper in PNAS is intriguing: “Artificially ambiguous genetic code confers growth yield advantage.” An international team claims to have created a beneficial mutation. They removed the editing ability of a protein involved in translating the genetic code, and got it to survive in a nutrient-starved environment. They suggest that the resulting […]

Amazing Facts

Hippos Sweat Their Own Sunscreen

May 25, 2004

You know that reddish fluid on hippo skin that turns brown? It’s not just funny colored sweat. Japanese scientists reported in Nature1 that it acts as a sunscreen and an antibiotic. See also the BBC News report on this finding. 1Saikawa et al., “Pigment chemistry: The red sweat of the hippopotamus,” Nature 429, 363 (27 […]

Bible and Theology

Humans and Chimps Compared

May 25, 2004

In case you had an identity crisis last time at the zoo, Current Biology can provide psychoanalysis. The May 25 issue posted two articles side by side: one, simply entitled “Humans,”1 and the other, “Chimps.”2 Various comparisons are contrasts are drawn, including a few surprising facts, such as this statement: “Based on relative amounts of […]

Solar System

Red Planet News; Ring World Beckons

May 25, 2004

Let’s drop in on Mars for the latest findings. The two Mars Exploration Rovers are still doing splendidly; Spirit has its goal mapped out, a tour of the Columbia Hills where rock outcrops beckon geologists. It recently crossed the 1.5 mile mark and set a single-day distance record, covering more than a football field with […]

Dumb Ideas

Plant Evolution Modeled in Computer

May 24, 2004

Simulation games are popular on computers. Darwinian biologists seem to like them, too. What they cannot go back in time to observe, they sometimes try to recreate in silico, inside the silicon chips of a computer. Karl J. Niklas (Cornell) tried to simulate plant evolution, and wrote about it in Annual Review of Earth and […]

Amazing Facts

Cormorant Eyes Rapidly Refocus in Dives Into Murky Water

May 24, 2004

You’re hang gliding over a lake, and you spot a fish below. From your hovering position, you drop into a rapid, steep dive headfirst into the water. Whoops; your eyes just went out of focus, and you lost your fish in the murky depths. Too bad you’re not a cormorant. Cormorants (a kind […]

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