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National Geographic Calls Noah’s Ark Search a Stunt
September 20, 2002
National Geographic News has taken the announcement that McGivern’s team failed to get a permit to search Mt. Ararat (see 04/26/2004 headline) as an opportunity to question all searches and the historicity of Noah’s flood.  They questioned the character and motives of the search team and its guide, and quoted a historian who called the […]
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Cosmology

How Precise Is “Precision Cosmology”?
September 20, 2002
When data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) came in, cosmologists heralded it as the era of “precision cosmology” and immediately began to make claims that resulting data map confirmed some cosmological theories and falsified others (see 02/14/2003 headline).  Two papers in the Astrophysical Journal, however, are discounting the precision of the data and […]
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Early Man

Press Goes Ape Over Baby Lucy
September 20, 2002
The news media, especially National Geographic, BBC News, and Associated Press (see Fox News) have new fodder for human-evolution stories and artwork, now that a partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis has been reported in Nature.1  The teeth, cranium, shoulder blades, fingers, inner ear, hyoid bone and other well-preserved parts match “typical African ape morphology.”  This […]
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Dinosaurs

Farewell, Cannibal Dino
September 20, 2002
Whoops, We Were Wrong Dept.:  Fossils of Coelophysis found in 1947 included members of the same species in the stomach, so they were cannibals, right?  Not so fast, corrects an article in BBC News.  The food now looks more like filet of crocodile.  After re-examining the evidence, researchers from Columbia University and the American Museum […]
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Health

No More Excuses: You Have Time to Work Out
September 20, 2002
If you use the excuse that you don’t have the time to exercise, consider a study from McMaster University in Canada that found a short, 20-minute intense workout can be just as effective as two hours of moderate exercise.  You can manage 20 minutes, can’t you?  Another Canadian study mentioned on EurekAlert claims that walking, […]
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Uncategorized

How Did Blue Stars Get So Close to a Black Hole?
September 20, 2002
Every solution breeds new problems, Murphy’s Law suggests.  Astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope feel that pain.  While finding confirming evidence for a supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy M31, they are perplexed to see a disk of hot blue stars orbiting it too close for comfort.  Estimated to be […]
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Dumb Ideas

Validity of Evolutionary Explanations Demonstrated
September 20, 2002
An article in Ethology is claiming much for itself.  It purports to show “New evidence for the validity of evolutionary explanations,” according to EurekAlert.  Researchers are claiming evidence that “Men holding high positions within a hierarchical organisation have more offspring than those in other positions within the same organisation.”  The sample was male university employees.  […]
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Cell Biology

Subway System Found in Immune Cells
September 20, 2002
The announcement of a “third form of intercellular communication” hit scientists like TNT: tunneling nanotubules, that is.  Science Now reported that “Scientists have found what appears to be a whole new way for immune cells to communicate with one another: long, narrow tubes that enable them to connect and exchange molecules.”  These subway tunnels between […]
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Dumb Ideas

Rooting for Human Evolution
September 20, 2002
Can you squeeze human blood out of a turnip?  A new story floating around for how humans began their long divergence away from apes in the jungle was that they developed a taste for roots.  EurekAlert reported a story coming out of U of Minnesota: “About five to seven million years ago, when the lineage […]
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Cosmology

Questioning Earth’s Privileges
September 20, 2002
51; Two articles this week downplayed considerations that would make the Earth seem like a special place in the universe.  Both have ties to NASA.     Are life-friendly stars limited to a narrow band in the galaxy called the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ)?  NASA-supported Astrobiology Magazine cast doubt on the idea.  Citing a study […]
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Early Man

Dmanisi Homo erectus Fossil Count Grows
September 20, 2002
More bones matching the skulls from the purported Eurasian Homo erectus skulls in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia have been found (for background, see 08/31/2005 bullet 5, 03/20/2005, 08/01/2002, 11/29/2002). The find was reported in Nature1 with commentary by Daniel Lieberman in the same issue.2 The bones, including ribs, leg bones and arm bones, fingers and […]
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Intelligent Design

SETI at 50: Onward with Style
September 20, 2002
51; It’s been fifty years since the first scientific paper suggested listening in on the stellar radio dial for signs of intelligence.1  Nature celebrated the occasion with two articles and an Editorial that said,2 “Despite the long odds against success, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has come a long way.”     SETI sure has […]
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Dinosaurs

Waltzing with Dinosaurs
September 20, 2002
51; An international team of paleontologists wrote a kind of “State of the Tyrannosaur Address” in Science last week,1 boasting about all that is known of these creatures: Tyrannosaurs, the group of dinosaurian carnivores that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and its closest relatives, are icons of prehistory.  They are also the most intensively studied extinct dinosaurs, […]
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Amazing Facts

Big Bird Was Scary
September 20, 2002
51; A giant fossil bird with a serrated-edge beak was found in Chile, reported Science Daily, PhysOrg, Live Science, and New Scientist.  The projections on its beak look like teeth but are not true teeth.  They probably helped the sea bird hold onto fish.  The artist reconstruction gives the bird a scary-looking demeanor.     […]
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Fossils

Soft Squid Ink Sac Claimed to Be 150 Million Years Old
August 20, 2002
51; The BBC News announced the discovery of a fossil squid with its ink sac still intact.  “The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac.”  The ink has been sent to Yale for analysis.  An article on the Daily Mail […]
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