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Astronomy

SETI Ignorance Gets Stronger
December 9, 2010
“Science is not about blind faith” begins a video posted on MSNBC about SETI.  Part of an article by AP reporter Seth Borenstein, “Evidence for E.T. is mounting daily, but not proven,” the video explains Frank Drake’s famous equation that tries to quantify the probability for extraterrestrial intelligence (09/29/2010, 11/24/2008).  Though Drake confidently asserts the […]
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Amazing Facts

Cells Manage Stress and Death
December 4, 2010
Like soldiers in a foreign land, cells sometimes find themselves in unexpected situations.  Key equipment breaks down, or the environment puts stress on their resources.  Without the ability to adapt, they could perish – and in worst-case scenarios they must, like a squadron under ambush with no way out.  In such cases, like spies carrying […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Mammals Partied When Dinosaurs Left
November 29, 2010
A research team headed by a biology professor at the University of New Mexico are claiming that mammals had a field day when the dinosaurs went extinct.  They got bigger and more diverse, filling in the ecological wasteland left by the missing giant reptiles.  Their analysis was published in Science.1     In addition, they […]
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Amazing Facts

Even Your Trash Can Is High-Tech
November 24, 2010
Cells have the same problem as cities: disposing of trash.  Each of your cells has elaborate trash collector machines that not only dispose of damaged or unneeded proteins – they recycle them, too.  The structure of the proteasome, a fragile machine difficult to crystallize for imaging, has just become clearer thanks to researchers in Germany […]
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Amazing Facts

Boggle Your Brain
November 19, 2010
A new animation of a trip through a brain shows mind-boggling complexity in more detail than ever before.  The animation, posted by freelance journalist Elizabeth A. Moore on CNET News, represents years of work by Stanford University School of Medicine.  Using green fluorescent protein in a mouse brain to light up synapses, and photographing the […]
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Amazing Facts

Dinosaur Fossils Flaunt Physics
November 17, 2010
Recent announcements about dinosaurs show that even the large ones exhibited physics fitness.  Their size did not inhibit their mobility. T. rex racer:  Maybe Jurassic Park got it right after all.  According to Science Daily, “Tyrannosaurus rex was far from a plodding Cretaceous era scavenger whose long tail only served to counterbalance the up-front weight […]
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Philosophy of Science

A Tale of Two Mavericks
November 12, 2010
Two men who recently died are now being honored for their willingness to have stood up to the majority and advanced views that were unpopular at the time.
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Darwin and Evolution

Evolutionary Explanations Come Up Empty
November 10, 2010
When evolutionists claim that they have explained the evolution of this or that, or that their research sheds light on its evolution, a closer examination sometimes shows verbiage covering up hollow reasoning, or even employing intelligent design concepts as weapons against design. Snap goes the dragon:  PhysOrg highlighted a research project by some UK biologists […]
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Amazing Facts

Venus Flytrap Uses Chemical “Brain”
November 9, 2010
There’s a lowly plant that has a botanical version of muscles and a brain – the Venus flytrap.  It has muscle in its ability to snap its traps shut faster than a bug can escape.  And it has a brain in its ability to distinguish between debris and edible prey.  More about its chemical brain […]
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Amazing Facts

Cells Can Be Transformed
November 8, 2010
An astonishing feat has been performed in a Canadian lab: scientists turned human skin cells into blood cells.  Bypassing the need for stem cells, the technique provides hope for a supply of blood from a person’s own skin. Live Science calls it a “modern miracle.”  The technique avoids “the ethical concerns concerning embryonic stem cells […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Is “Religious Selection” Evolution?
November 6, 2010
An annual ritual by a tribe in Mexico has caused some cave fish to adapt.  Science Daily calls this “evolution by religious selection.”  But is it really evolution?  Two evolutionary biologists think so; they said that the tribe not only changed the population dynamics of the fish, but “inadvertently kick-started the evolutionary process of natural […]
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Cosmology

Dumbing Down the Science Reading Public
November 5, 2010
In their rush to grab attention-getting headlines, are reporters doing more harm than good?  An essential part of science education is critical thinking.  Some headlines and articles state ideas that far outstrip the meager data on which they are based.  Fingers do the walking:  Science Daily blindly reproduced an audacious claim from the University of […]
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Amazing Facts

All Kingdoms of Life Have Ideas We Need
November 4, 2010
Inventors aren’t partial.  They are willing to find inspiration in plants, animals, and microbes.  Here are three examples showing that all kingdoms of life have great engineering ideas that researchers involved in biomimetics are seeking to understand. Plants:  We don’t fight walled cities with catapults any more, but storing elastic energy can still be useful.  […]
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Amazing Facts

Windows into the Mind
November 3, 2010
What would it be like to see things for the first time?  You can watch the reaction on Live Science #1 and Live Science #2.  Blind patients were implanted with a microchip that allowed them, for the first time, to roughly sense the visual input of objects in front of them.  Amazing as it was, […]
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Dumb Ideas

The Blue and Red States of OOL
October 29, 2010
When it comes to the origin of life (OOL), some scientists color it blue; some color it red.  New Scientist votes for the blue state.  “LIFE may really have been created by a spark, one that came as a bolt from the deep blue.”  Inspired by visions sent from Ryuhei Nakamura at the University of […]
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