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Fossils

How Bambi Gave Rise to Moby Dick
December 20, 2002
The title of this entry, in Kipling Just-So Story format, is only slightly modified from an article from The Guardian, titled, “How Bambi evolved into Moby-Dick.”  This is not a joke; check on the link and see.     The article is about the latest fossil claimed to be ancestral to whales.  Hans Thewissen (Northeastern […]
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Dumb Ideas

Robot Tadpole Sex Sheds Light on Intelligent Design
November 20, 2002
Scientists studying the evolution of vertebrate physiology at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.  have designed swimming robots to demonstrate how evolution might have produced such efficient vertebrate swimmers (see Live Science).  Swimming abilities of each robot were tested by measuring its ability to swim toward and follow a light suspended above the surface of a […]
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Amazing Facts

Flight Design Inspires Research
November 20, 2002
There are flying machines hovering over our planet that can turn on a dime, making rapid 90-degree turns.  Their instruments process images ten times faster than we can, and possess precision gyros that tell them how fast they are rotating in space – yet their computers are smaller than the head of a pin.  They’re […]
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Uncategorized

Crystals Envision Crusty Earth
November 20, 2002
Reuters reported that “Tiny zircon crystals dug up from ancient Australian deposits appear to have been formed right after the birth of the planet – a finding that suggests that early on, Earth had a cool crust much like today’s that could have harbored life, scientists said on Thursday.” (see MSNBC News).  This interpretation comes […]
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Dumb Ideas

Evolutionists Reduce Human Ideals to Molecules
November 20, 2002
Two recent stories illustrate the attempt by some evolutionary biologists to reduce complex human behaviors to chance events among molecules. You Are What You Get High On:  Michael Balter in ScienceNow asked, “Did endorphins make us more human?”  Pondering that question is a photo of a chimp and a naked ape (i.e., man) facing opposite […]
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Genetics

Human Genome Project: A “Worthwhile Failure”
November 20, 2002
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was filled with promise.  Walter Gilbert claimed in 1992 that it would bring about “a change in our philosophical understanding of ourselves… one will be able to pull a CD out of one’s pocket and say, ‘Here’s a human being; it’s me!’”  Why does philosopher-biologist Sahotra Sarkar consider that prospect […]
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Dumb Ideas

Out-of-Africa Theory Becomes More Convoluted
November 20, 2002
The old simple story that early modern humans migrated out of Africa 40,000 years ago and took over Europe from brutish Neanderthals just got more complicated.  A new theory mentioned in National Geographic News now proposes that they took a side trip to India first, 70,000 years ago.  After knocking off Heidelberg Man there, they […]
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Bible and Theology

Origin 150th: Time to Mock the Creationists
November 20, 2002
51; With the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin just around the corner (Nov. 24th), Evangelist Ray Comfort and actor Kirk Cameron and volunteers are invading some 50 universities today to hand out free copies of Darwin’s magnum opus.  These, however, are spiked with a critical introduction that criticizes evolutionary theory and presents the Christian gospel.  […]
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Cell Biology

Stem Cell Breakthrough
November 20, 2002
Stem cells from skin cells: it’s all over the news – see EurekAlert 1, EurekAlert 2, EurekAlert 3, EurekAlert 4, National Geographic News, BreitBart.com, BBC News 1, BBC News 2, MSNBC and and PhysOrg for sample reports.  Two teams working independently, one in Japan and one in America, were able to tinker with just four […]
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Biomimetics

Intelligent Design Put to Good Scientific Use
November 20, 2002
51; Evolutionists try to portray intelligent design as something outside of science that threatens science.  Actually, the techniques of intelligent design are hard at work within science, and have been for some time.  Examples are not hard to find on a variety of fronts. Archaeology:  “The ability to tell the difference between crystals that formed […]
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Amazing Facts

Sponges Use Fiber Optics for Interior Lighting
November 20, 2002
51; Sponges are among the simplest of multicellular organisms, but they contain an advanced human technology: fiber optics.  In a case of reverse biomimetics, scientists have determined that one of the products of proud human engineering was already at work in a lowly sponge.     Fiber optical properties of sponge spicules was already known, […]
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Genetics

Genes Are Not Telling the Whole Story
October 20, 2002
A growing realization is dawning on geneticists: there is more going on in DNA than previously imagined.  Now that whole genomes are becoming available, scientists are eagerly trying to understand how the genetic code (genotype) produces a full-grown organism (phenotype), like a fruit fly or human.  The interesting stuff in DNA used to be the […]
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Fossils

Another Tetrapod Ancestor Claimed
October 20, 2002
Maybe the Aussies want their share of missing link notoriety; an unusual fish with bony fins has been discovered in western Australia, reported in Nature.1  The bigger the splash a missing link makes for reporters, the better.  The story on Science Daily said, “A fossil fish discovered in the West Australian Kimberley has been identified […]
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Origin of Life

Miller-Frankenstein Ghost Rises from the Dead
October 20, 2002
51; Stanley Miller died last year, but his friendly ghost lives on.  Famous for his Halloweenish spark-discharge apparatus that brought naturalism to life, Miller subsequently began to doubt the simplistic “primordial soup” vision that took on a life of its own, making apparitions in many a textbook.  He realized that improbably atmospheric conditions—a reducing atmosphere […]
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Solar System

Ring Around the Moons
October 20, 2002
51; Saturn is known for its rings, and some small moons have been found inside its rings.  But wouldn’t it be strange if some of its moons had rings of their own?  Such a thing had not been widely considered before 2007, when there was a tentative detection of a ring around Rhea (see 03/10/2008).  […]
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