Awards – Page 181

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Evolution as Efficiency Expert

February 6, 2009

Who would have thought that a lowly bacterium is a “master of industrial efficiency”? That’s what a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science called it. E. coli, the best-studied microbe, “can be thought of as a factory with just one product: itself,” a press release said. “It exists to make copies of itself, and […]

Birds

The Early Bird Gets the Just-So Story

February 3, 2009

If a catastrophic world event wiped out the dinosaurs, why did birds survive? They’re smaller and more delicate, it seems. National Geographic published a new hypothesis: they out-thought the doomed dinosaurs. “Birds survived the global catastrophe that wiped out their dinosaur relatives due to superior brainpower, a new study suggests.” A couple of […]

Amazing Facts

Corn Is Fuel in More Ways than One

February 3, 2009

There’s been controversy lately about the diversion of corn crops from food for humans to ethanol for engines. Why not both? A new pilot program announced by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft saves the corn cobs for eating but makes ethanol out of the straw. If so, this would make the whole plant an energy factory for the human […]

Dumb Ideas

Darwin Praise Service Begins

February 1, 2009

The celebrations in honor of Charles Robert Darwin for his 200th birthday (Feb. 12) and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his influential book On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection (Nov. 29th) are well underway. It is hard to think of any other scientist who gets the kind of gushy adulation heaped […]

Dumb Ideas

Plant Lignin Found in Red Algae

January 29, 2009

Time to rewrite the textbooks again. The story of plant evolution is wrong. Lignin, a chemical that gives wood its stiffness, was thought to be unique to land plants. Now it has been found in red algae, reported Science Daily, with the title, “Billion-year Revision Of Plant Evolution Timeline May Stem From Discovery Of Lignin […]

Darwin and Evolution

Exploring the Malleability of Evolutionary Explanation

January 23, 2009

Is evolutionary theory just a very malleable and ductile idea, able to adapt to changing observations, or should it be described as a strong theory, powerful in its explanatory breadth?

Dumb Ideas

Monkey See, Darwin Do

January 15, 2009

Science Daily thought so. In an article adorned by a picture of macaques enjoying a hot spring, the title read, “Primate Culture Is Just A Stone’s Throw Away From Human Evolution, Study Finds.” The studious studiers were researchers at the Primate Research Center in Kyoto, Japan. They discovered what children already know: monkey […]

Amazing Facts

Biology Now Includes Fluid Dynamic Construction

January 13, 2009

There’s an old legend that Tibetan monks built a wall by levitating heavy stones with sound by beating their drums and gongs. Something not quite so fantastic but still amazing is done by cells in the embryo. Scientists have filmed zebrafish embryos using beating cilia to build little stone structures that they use for balance. […]

Darwin and Evolution

Darwin in the Air

January 11, 2009

Darwin Day euphoria must be in the air. There have been several news stories with Darwin or Evolution in the title, but little to his credit in the substance of the article. Evolution inaction: The human immune system is, by any account, Science Daily, however not only called it a case of “Evolution in Action,” […]

Amazing Facts

Watch for Flying Giraffes (and Convergent Evolutionists)

January 9, 2009

Imagine giraffe-sized animals that could fly. They lived. National Geographic News has an illustration of an extinct pterosaur, tall as a giraffe, that was able to leap into the air and flap its wings for sustained powered flight. Live Science discussed work by Michael Habib [Johns Hopkins U School of Medicine] on the […]

Amazing Facts

Your Brain Decides Best Unconsciously

January 4, 2009

A report on Science Daily claims your subconscious brain makes the best decisions possible. This is based on work by cognitive neuroscientists at the University of Rochester. Alex Pouget believes the brain is hard-wired to make optimal decisions – when we are not consciously thinking about them. Pouget has been demonstrating for years that certain […]

Dumb Ideas

Religion: The Evolution of Self-Control

January 1, 2009

A psychologist came up with a new theory of how religion evolved. It evolved to give people more self-control. Science Daily reported the ideas of Miami psychologist Michael McCullough. Basically, “Religion May Have Evolved Because Of Its Ability To Help People Exercise Self-control,” the article states, with a picture of a rural church […]

Amazing Facts

Handy Motor Found in Virus

December 30, 2008

Your job today is to stuff a delicate chain into a barrel without breaking it and make it wrap neatly inside. A tiny virus does this with helping hands, reported Purdue University. A research team uncovered the mechanism of a “powerful molecular motor” that crams the viral DNA tightly into the capsid with the help […]

Dumb Ideas

Language Evolved from Whistling

December 29, 2008

Meet Bonnie, the whistling orangutan. According to National Geographic News, she is giving evolutionary anthropologists something to talk about: the evolution of human language. NG reported on a new theory: Lead author Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, said orangutans in Indonesia have been seen pretending to wash clothes. “We know they […]

Amazing Facts

Plants Heal Humans and Vice Versa

December 29, 2008

Flowers in your hospital room do actually make you heal faster. A study by Kansas State researchers reported by PhysOrg found that more patients recovered from abdominal surgery faster with flowers in the room. It may be due to more than the psychological benefit of enjoying their colors, fragrances and the get-well wishes behind them: […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="2"]