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Amazing Facts

Mosquitos Are Water-Walking Champions
July 18, 2007
We hate ’em, but in one sense we should admire them: mosquitos are the water-walking champions of the animal kingdom.  They even beat out water striders, reported Live Science and EurekAlert based on research from Physical Review E.  Science Daily wrote of “miraculous mosquito legs” and had a picture of the intricate fan-shaped superhydrophobic structures […]
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Dumb Ideas

News Reporters Knuckling Under to Darwinian Storytelling
July 17, 2007
The science news media are virtually going ape over a claim about how chimpanzees might have evolved into upright-walking humans: what is going on?  It began with a paper in PNAS.1  Sockol, Raichlen and Pontzer measured the gaits of chimpanzees and humans and concluded that it is more efficient to walk upright than to propel […]
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Amazing Facts

Cool Cell Tricks
July 16, 2007
Some cell parts act like acrobats, some like rescue workers, and some like I.T. professionals.  Here are some recent stories about the tricks that living cells perform each day. Precision formation flying:  The Scientist expressed amazement at the precision of key factors in development of the body plan in fruit flies.  The levels of expression […]
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Amazing Facts

Roadrunner and Largest Flying Bird Described from Fossils
July 15, 2007
A bird with a 23-foot wingspan was described in the BBC News.  At an estimated 155 pounds, this bird probably had to jump from a height to get airborne and likely rode on thermals.  The article says the bird rivalled in size some light airplanes.  A diagram shows the Argentinean giant with wings upwardly stretched […]
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Mammals

Elephant Trunk Inspires Robot Arm
July 9, 2007
Scientists are trying to imitate the smooth, supple movements of an elephant's trunk.
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Cosmology

Nature Celebrates Bizarre ‘Many-Worlds’ Cosmology
July 7, 2007
The cover of Nature this week (July 7) looks like a comic book.
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Amazing Facts

Mother-of-Pearl Inspires Materials Science
July 5, 2007
It’s not only beautiful, it’s strong.  EurekAlert described how scientists are intrigued by mother-of-pearl, also called nacre, because of its strength: you can drive a truck over it and it will not break.  It is 3,000 times more resistant to fracture than the aragonite from which the oyster makes it.  95% of it self-assembles in […]
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Dumb Ideas

Evolutionist Trains Toddler to Adore Darwin
July 3, 2007
Marc Hauser is an evolutionary psychologist at Harvard who believes human morals and language evolved from ape-like ancestors.1  He was interviewed in Current Biology,2 and asked the usual question – and gave the usual answer with a surprising personal twist: Do you have a scientific hero? When my youngest daughter was about three years old, […]
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Dumb Ideas

A Brain Emerged for Such a Worm as I
July 2, 2007
With no room for discussion or Q&A, a press release from European Molecular Biology Laboratory asserted, “Modern brains have an ancient core.”  How ancient?  At least as far back as the marine ragworm.  Continuing the confident assertions, it went on to say, “Multifunctional neurons that sense the environment and release hormones are the evolutionary basis […]
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Amazing Facts

Health News that Brings Hope
July 1, 2007
Why do we never see articles claiming that exercise is bad?  Here are some more reasons to get moving. Work your brain:  Who wouldn’t mind a few more brain cells?  EurekAlert reported research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that exercise can stimulate the formation of new brain cells.  They think this helps explain why […]
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Dumb Ideas

Darwin’s House: A Religious Shrine?
June 28, 2007
Britain withdrew Darwin’s home, Downe House (outside London), from consideration as a UN World Heritage Site, and Nature seemed downright disappointed.1  An article quoted Darwin scholar James Moore saying, “Muslims go to Mecca, Christians go to Jerusalem, Darwinians go to Downe.”  This seems to equate Darwinians with believers in a religion, but Nature quoted this […]
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Amazing Facts

Our Complex Brains: Lessons from Phrenology
June 25, 2007
This is your brain on science: it is too complex for simplistic diagrams.  Back in the 19th century, the “science” of phrenology was in full swing.  Phrenologists divided the brain into more than two dozen regions of “mental faculties” that controlled such things as instincts for eating and sex, sensation of color, language ability, and […]
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Bible and Theology

The Evolution of Pride: Psychology Trumps the Bible?
June 19, 2007
“The Bible got it wrong,” announced a subtitle on Science Daily: pride doesn’t come before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).  A proud look and haughty eyes may be the first two of the Bible’s seven deadly sins (Proverbs 6:16-19), but psychologist Jessica Tracy (U of British Columbia) begs to differ.  She says pride can be a […]
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Amazing Facts

Why Your Eyes Jitter
June 18, 2007
The coach’s advice “Keep your eye on the ball” is impossible, because your eyes are constantly in motion with tiny jerks called fixational eye movements or saccades.  Why do the eyes move all the time?  Some scientists at Boston University decided to find out.  Reporting in Nature,1 they found that saccades help you discriminate fine […]
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Amazing Facts

Plants’ International Travel Upsets Evolutionary Idea
June 16, 2007
They may be rooted in soil, but plants really get around.  Some of them make it around the world.  One example has upset a long-believed evolutionary idea.     First of all, plants have a social life.  National Geographic published a story about how plants socialize and communicate.  “Plants have family values, too, it seems, […]
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