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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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Darwin and Evolution

The Why and How of Leopard Spots
October 20, 2002
51; A leopard may not be able to change its spots (Jeremiah 13:23), but maybe evolution can – if evolutionists – or Rudyard Kipling – can tell us how or why.  A headline in the BBC News promised to tell us “how the leopard got its spots,” while PhysOrg promised to reveal, “Why the leopard […]
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Physical Science

Radioactive Dating: Science or Alchemy?
September 20, 2002
Richard Kerr had some surprising things to say about uranium-lead dating in the Sept. 17 issue of Science1 – surprising, because as a believer in the method and an evolutionist, he admitted there is a fair amount of unscientific methodology and controversy involved.  “For years, different laboratories using uranium-lead radiometric dating—the gold standard of geochronology—have […]
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Physical Science

Mars Methane May Be Geological, Not Biological
September 20, 2002
Just when the ESA Mars Express spacecraft was collecting data on methane emissions on Mars, leading some to speculate it might be a biomarker, Science Now reported new findings that indicate methane can form naturally in Earth’s mantle by heating water, iron oxide and calcite under pressure (see also Physics Web).     This demonstrates […]
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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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