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Mars’ Gusev Crater May Be Dry
January 22, 2004
Preliminary indications from the spectrometer on Spirit, the rover exploring Gusev Crater on Mars, may dash hopes for those looking for evidence of past water there.  According to the NASA-JPL press release, the signature of olivine has been found.  Olivine degrades in water, even at near-freezing temperatures, and it weathers easily.  It is not known […]
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Human Body

Why You Need Sleep
January 21, 2004
A study in the Jan. 22 issue of Nature1 claims that sleep gives you inspiration.  Sleep is not just a waste of a third of your day; it helps consolidate memories, and provides pivotal insights.  “Insight denotes a mental restructuring that leads to a sudden gain of explicit knowledge allowing qualitatively changed behaviour,” the five […]
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Dumb Ideas

Does Microevolution Add Up?
January 15, 2004
Do numerous small changes add up to big ones, like Darwin thought?  In the Jan. 15 issue of Nature,1 New Zealand kiwi David Penny (Allan Wilson Center for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Massey University) is hopeful that the new chimp genome will prove it so: The fundamental issue here is Darwin’s bold claim that “numerous, […]
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Fossils

Fossil Worm: Does It Help Solve Cambrian Explosion Puzzle?
January 14, 2004
A soft embryo of a Cambrian worm, exquisitely preserved, makes Graham Budd (U. of Uppsala, Sweden) ask some hard questions about it and other recently-discovered embryo fossils in the Jan. 15 issue of Nature:1 These fossils raise several questions, to say the least.  First, how could they possibly be preserved?  Second, why are they concentrated […]
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Uncategorized

Centromere Shows More Gems in “Junk DNA”
January 12, 2004
A biochemist at University of Wisconsin-Madison and a colleague sequenced a hard-to-sequence part of the rice genome, the centromere, and found four genes in it.  Previously, it was thought to be a vast wasteland of repetitive, non-coding DNA.  The scientist, Jiming Jiang, thinks his work provides a “window to evolution” of the centromere, according to […]
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Dumb Ideas

Your Bacteria Ancestors
January 12, 2004
Dr. Peter Antonelli thinks he has mathematically proven that all multicellular organisms, including plants and animals and human beings, came from two ancient bacteria that met and formed a stable, consistent relationship.  His boast is explained on a University of Alberta press release.  He thinks most biologists don’t comprehend his mathematical models yet, but EurekAlert […]
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Uncategorized

How Enzymes Work – But Don’t Ask Where They Came From: Just Believe
January 12, 2004
Enzymes are protein machines in the cell that speed up reactions that normally would proceed very slowly or not at all.  Four biochemists publishing in the Jan. 9 issue of Science1 describe the exquisite power of these biological catalysts: “Enzyme catalysis, which can produce rate accelerations as large as a factor of 1019, involves molecular […]
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Dumb Ideas

Did Borax Evolve Into 20-Mule Teams?
January 9, 2004
You’re dating yourself if you remember the old TV western Death Valley Days, and its commercials about 20-Mule Team Borax.  (Mule teams actually did pull loads of borax from Death Valley to Mojave, quite a feat in those days, but that’s another story.)  In modern times, though, borax has made science news as a possible […]
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Bible and Theology

“Accepted Science” or Censorship by National Park Service?
January 8, 2004
What’s a national park bookstore vendor to do?  A beautiful new book of photographs and quotations on Grand Canyon, entitled Grand Canyon: A Different View by veteran river rafting captain Tom Vail, went on sale in the national park bookstore.  One would think it would not stand out too much along with hundreds of other […]
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Education

Book
January 7, 2004
The Discovery Institute in Seattle has published a new book, Darwinism, Design and Public Education, by John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer, encouraging schools to teach both sides of the controversy over Darwinism vs Intelligent Design. The Darwin Party’s spin doctoring that students should be protected from the controversy over Darwinism is unpopular and […]
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Amazing Facts

How Do Plants Know When to Bloom?
January 7, 2004
Scientists like to use big words to impress the rest of us, so they have a term for how a plant decides when to bloom: vernalization.  But making up a word for a phenomenon is not the same as explaining it.     Everybody observes that plants seem to just “know” that spring is here, […]
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Uncategorized

New Autobiography of Darwin Published
January 6, 2004
“The Darwin industry as busy as ever with the recent completion of a major biography and renewed scrutiny of his substantial correspondence,” writes Nigel Williams in the Jan. 6 issue of Current Biology.  “But a new edition of his autobiography compiled by his son is a welcome addition.”  The work seems to talk about his […]
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Uncategorized

How Long Can DNA Survive?
January 6, 2004
An international team of scientists takes issue with recent claims that ancient DNA has been found in ice, amber, salt or rock many millions of years old (see 05/23/2002 entry, for instance).  They think such cases are due to contamination and have not been independently replicated.  They gathered samples in Siberian and Antarctic permafrost under […]
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Bible and Theology

Discussions Increase About Science and Religion
January 5, 2004
Cary McMullen, writing for the Lakeland Ledger (Florida), has listed some recent developments indicating that more and more scientists and theologians are becoming interested in the relationship between science and religion.  His list spans a spectrum from atheistic opinions of Stephen Weinberg to neo-orthodox views of Fuller Seminary, with a variety of voices and views […]
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Solar System

Mars Rover Lands
January 3, 2004
From the scene of news at Jet Propulsion Laboratory At 8:35 p.m. Pacific Time Saturday, January 3, signal was lost as a large set of air bags bounced on the surface of Mars.  After several nail-biting minutes, signal was reacquired by two Earth stations, indicating that the Mars Exploration Rover “Spirit” had survived the heat […]
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