VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Politics and Ethics

Scientific Elitism Trumps Democracy
March 12, 2004
They don’t want it, but they’re going to get it.  Britons have expressed outrage and anger over genetically-modified foods, such as pesticide-resistant maize, reports Jim Giles in Nature.1  But the government has listened to scientists who have assured government ministers it is safe.  On March 9, they approved commercial planting of GM maize “in the […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Much Ado About Nothing
March 12, 2004
How much can you say about nothing?  Some people can say quite a lot.  One astrobiologist just wrote a large book about it: Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life by David Grinspoon (Harper Collins, 2003).     Larry R. Nittler reviewed this new book in the March 12 issue of Science.1  Nittler describes […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Major Cave with Fossils Found in Arizona
March 11, 2004
Arizona Central has announced a major cave discovery east of Tucson.  The cave, named La Tetera, was discovered eight years ago but was kept secret till today.  The first human exploration only began New Years Day 2002.  The cave, located within Colossal Cave State Park, is said to rival or exceed Kartchner Caverns in the […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

The Evolution of Omnipotence
March 11, 2004
With a headline like “New Theory: Universe Created by Intelligent Being,” one might think that National Geographic News has gone creationist and rediscovered Genesis 1.  The opposite would be true.  The article by John Roach explores the radical thinking of a lawyer/scientist named James Gardner, who has just published a book, Biocosm: The New Scientific […]
CONTINUE READING
Education

Evolution Battle Heats Up in Ohio
March 10, 2004
CNN has reported that the Ohio school board voted 13-5 in favor of an optional set of lessons called “Critical Analysis of Evolution.”  The usual opponents are lining up on both sides; some scientific organizations are claiming it is a “religious effort cloaked as science,” but others consider it a victory for students and for […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Hubble Deep Field Surpassed: Ultra Deep Field
March 9, 2004
If you remember the awe of seeing the first Hubble Deep Field image in 1995, check out the new HUDF: Hubble Ultra Deep Field (see also the New Scientist report).  The field of view, just one-tenth the size of the full moon, is a composite of 800 images taken for 11.3 days.  The 1995 image […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Chameleon Tongue Beats Jet Aircraft
March 8, 2004
Did you know a chameleon’s tongue is so fast as it shoots out toward its prey, it reaches 50 G’s – five times faster than a fighter jet can accelerate?  Science Now describes how the chameleon does it.  Scientists only recently found out the secret with high-speed photography and careful examination of the tongue structure, […]
CONTINUE READING
Geology

Rethinking the Geological Layers
March 5, 2004
One of the most formative ideas in Darwin’s intellectual journey was the concept of gradualism, the principle of “small agencies and their cumulative effects.”  This idea became a dominant motif in his philosophy of life.  Describing how the assumption of gradualism permeated his last book (on earthworms) shortly before his death, Janet Browne, in her […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

The Paleoanthropologist Mantra: “We Need More Fossils!”
March 5, 2004
Everyone join in and chant “the mantra of all paleontologists: We need more fossils!”  If you are a seeker of bones that might give clues of human ancestry, repeating this phrase might relieve stress.     In quotes above is the concluding line of an editorial by David R. Begun in the March 5 issue […]
CONTINUE READING
Health

Sugar-Dried Blood: Just Add Water
March 4, 2004
A sugar found in shrimp and yeast might save human lives on the battlefield.
CONTINUE READING
Education

How to Prevent Youthful Violence
March 4, 2004
EurekAlert posted a finding by University of Washington sociologists that “Family discipline, religious attendance, attachment to school cut levels of later violence among aggressive children.” Do we really need scientists to tell us the obvious?  Everyone seems to know this except secular researchers.  Solomon and Paul can tell the University of Washington all they need […]
CONTINUE READING
Cell Biology

Cellular Cowboys: How the Cell Rounds Up Chromosomes Before Dividing
March 4, 2004
Cell division is like cowboys lassoing cattle and pulling ones that match into two identical corrals.
CONTINUE READING
Politics and Ethics

Science Journal Editors Face Accountability
March 4, 2004
This quote by a journal editor comes from a news item in the Mar. 4 issue of Nature:1 “Like everybody else, we are much more interested in other people’s accountability than we are in our own,” explains Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), who helped to draft the new code.  “Editors are […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Opportunity Finds Evidence of Past Water on Mars
March 2, 2004
Liquid water once drenched the surface of Mars at Meridiani Planum and made it a suitable habitat for life, according to Ed Weiler at a NASA briefing today.  Four pieces of evidence from the Mars Exploration Rover named Opportunity led principal scientist Stephen Squyres to this conclusion: (1) the spherules appear to be concretions grown […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Fiber-Optic Sponge Makes Deep-Sea Lamps
March 1, 2004
Last year, it was announced that a deep-sea sponge named the Venus Flower Basket possessed glass strands similar to fiber optic cables (see 08/20/2003 headline).  Now, a five-member team from Bell Labs has performed the first detailed optical analysis of the fibers.  They indeed found these structures to be “remarkably similar to commercial silica optical […]
CONTINUE READING
Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly"]