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Amazing Facts

Fall Colors Have a Function
October 27, 2007
Deciduous trees have an investment decision to make when fall chill sets in: do they send their sunlight-produced nutrients to the roots early, and so risk damage to the leaves from autumn sunlight, or should they spend more energy creating a sunscreen that allows them to produce nutrients longer, and thereby increase food storage in […]
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Amazing Facts

Cilia Are Antennas for Human Senses and Development
October 26, 2007
The little hair-like projections on cells, called cilia, have more functions than previously believed.  A press release from Johns Hopkins University said that researchers found cilia are important for the sense of touch – particularly, for heat sensation.  In fact, cilia are implicated in at least three of the five traditional senses.     The […]
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Amazing Facts

Mega-Dinosaur Found in Argentina
October 18, 2007
Check out this dinosaur: 105 feet long, 43 feet tall, having a neck 56 feet long.  The spinal column alone probably weighed 9 tons.  That’s Futalognkosaurus dukei, one of the largest dinosaurs ever found, recently reported from Argentina (see BBC News and PhysOrg).  A single vertebral bone was nearly 3 feet long.  National Geographic called […]
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Solar System

New Horizons at Jupiter
October 15, 2007
New Horizons, a spaceship bound for Pluto, took a good look at the Jupiter system on Feb 28, 2007.
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Dumb Ideas

Walking Upright Was a Birth Defect
October 14, 2007
What’s so big about walking upright?  A single birth defect in a human ancestor 21 million years ago could have made it all possible, according to Dr. Aaron Filler (Cedars Sinai Medical Center), a specialist in the spine.     According to EurekAlert, he proposes that in the “hominiform hominoid” Morotopithecus, a sibling was born […]
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Amazing Facts

Inner Ear More Complex than Thought
October 13, 2007
Another level of complexity has been added to the mystery of hearing.  Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that another membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear, once thought to be passive, is actively involved in transmitting sound waves to the hair cell receptors.  Their work was published in PNAS.1     […]
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Astronomy

Dust Became Knowledge
October 11, 2007
The Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week award goes to an Associated Press article reporting on a finding from the Spitzer Space Telescope.  It began in a very matter-of-fact manner, claiming that the one of the biggest questions of philosophy is being answered by dust.   Astronomers have taken a baby step in trying to […]
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Amazing Facts

Make Your Face Sparkle With Diatoms
October 10, 2007
Human engineers may join forces with cellular architects to produce the next generation of paints, cosmetics and holograms, reported Science Daily.  Scientists are finding ways to harness the rapid growth of diatoms.  Manufacturing consumer products with these properties currently requires energy-intensive, high-temperature, high-pressure industrial processes that create tiny artificial reflectors.  But farming diatom shells, which […]
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Amazing Facts

Crow Cam Lets Scientists See Intelligence at Work
October 7, 2007
Ever want to fly like a bird?  Now you can do the next best thing: get a tail-feather view of what it is like to fly from branch to branch.  University of Oxford scientists attached a small video camera to the underside of a New Caledonian Crow to watch it in the wild, reported PhysOrg.  […]
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Dumb Ideas

Darwin Saves Junk, Makes Treasure Out of It
October 5, 2007
The Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week award goes to a press release from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which began by personifying Evolution1 as a tinkerer in its own junkyard:   Evolution has mastered the art of turning trash to treasure – though, for scientists, witnessing the transformation can require a bit of patience.  […]
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Amazing Facts

Bacteria and Plants Know Network Tech
October 1, 2007
An article on Science Daily says, “plants have their own chat systems that they can use to warn each other.”  Many herbal plants such as strawberry, clover, reed and ground elder naturally form networks.  Individual plants remain connected with each other for a certain period of time by means of runners.  These connections enable the […]
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Dumb Ideas

Evolutionists Say Parasites Made Humans Successful
September 30, 2007
“If cooperation has been the secret to our evolutionary success, we may have our parasites to thank for that.”  That’s a pretty big If, but that’s what two evolutionary biologists claimed this month Current Biology.1  The cooperative behaviors naturally selected in evolutionary host-parasite wars, by implication, are what gave human beings the ability to build […]
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Amazing Facts

Molecular Machines Under the Nanoscope
September 28, 2007
Seeing machines just billionths of a meter long seems impossible, but cell biologists are now routinely looking into the cellular black box.  Using indirect but powerful methods, they can actually begin to visualize the gears and wheels and cogs of the protein machines that make life possible.  Some of our favorite cell gadgets were examined […]
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Amazing Facts

Don’t Just Sit There; Evolve
September 27, 2007
Have you ever wondered why your body doesn’t evolve?  After all, it is kind of like a population of trillions of organisms.  Why shouldn’t it follow the rules of natural selection?  Philip Ball asked this question in News@Nature recently.  “Evolution is usually thought of as something that happens to whole organisms,” he teased.  “But there’s […]
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Dumb Ideas

Did Evolution Hardwire Our Instincts?
September 25, 2007
Jeanna Brynner in Live Science is claiming that evolution hard-wired our brains to pay attention to people and animals more than to inanimate threats.  This is based on a paper by evolutionary psychologists at UC Santa Barbara. The researchers say the finding supports the idea that natural selection molded mechanisms into our ancestors’ brains that […]
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