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Amazing Facts

Video Clip:  The Rich Little Bird
June 7, 2007
A popular video clip has been circulating around the internet for over a year.  It shows an Australian lyre bird imitating other birds and man-made sounds.  Click here to watch the 3.5 minute performance.  Narrated by David Attenborough, it was voted the #1 most popular Attenborough moment from the naturalist’s TV shows. Speaks for itself.  […]
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Amazing Facts

Color-Blind Cephalopods Perform Colorful Camouflage Tricks
June 6, 2007
Roger Hanlon has studied octopi, squid and cuttlefish for decades.  He stands in awe of their ability to camouflage themselves.  In a Primer article for Current Biology,1 he detailed some of their sleight-of-skin magic tricks.     His article has frames from a movie clip that show an octopus changing its skin from plain to […]
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Dumb Ideas

Did Walking Evolve in the Trees?
June 4, 2007
The news media are all echoing a report from Science1 that orangutan behavior in trees tells us something about the evolution of human bipedalism (see National Geographic, Fox News, and MSNBC News).  If this new view gains acceptance, it means the old iconic image of man emerging upright from a stooped-over ape posture (05/03/2007) is […]
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Dumb Ideas

How Best to Propagate Darwin’’s “Science”
May 31, 2007
Two book reviews recently discussed the problem of “scientific illiteracy” in society, which the authors equated with doubts about Darwinian evolution.
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Amazing Facts

Molecular Motors Move You
May 30, 2007
The realization that cells are filled with molecules that move like machines fascinates many people.  Students who grew up thinking of chemistry as bouncing molecules that did little more than link up and separate have a whole new paradigm to consider: molecules that walk, fold and unfold, spin and operate like ratchets, robots, wrenches and […]
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Amazing Facts

Ant Brain: Software Compression Extreme
May 28, 2007
How can so much software fit in such a small space?  An ant brain can’t be very big, but look what it can do.  The BBC News and Science Daily both told about the route-finding ability of army ants.  Not only do they find the most efficient routes to their targets, they even plug potholes […]
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Dumb Ideas

Red Vision Produced Red Hair in Monkeys
May 27, 2007
A story circulating in the news media claims that as soon as monkeys evolved the ability to see red, they evolved red hair to look at.  Isn’t that the gist of a press release from Ohio University?  Science Daily thought so, and so did Live Science, which said, “A new study shows that apes first […]
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Biomimetics

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Design by Darwin
May 24, 2007
Can Darwin get credit for intelligently-planned research?  Apparently John Chaput thinks so.  A press release from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University states this: Nature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks.  Inspired […]
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Amazing Facts

Science Is for the Birds
May 19, 2007
Birds, with all their variety and functionality, are a never-ending source of study for scientists.  Here are some recent feathery findings: Memory masters:  Scrub jays are like us: they can plan ahead, regardless of mood.  Current Biology did a study that proved these common western birds can cache tomorrow’s breakfast regardless of their motivational state.  […]
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Dumb Ideas

Batting for Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week
May 18, 2007
National Geographic reported that bats are master flyers, whose aerodynamic skills outperform birds.1  They also have an exquisitely refined sonar sense that allows them to discern detail as fine as a fish fin sticking out of the water.  Coupled with aerobatics and see-in-the-dark sonar, a bat can swoop down and catch the fish right out […]
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Dumb Ideas

Can Morality Be Evolutionized?
May 17, 2007
A psychologist at the University of Virginia is probing the evolutionary origins of morality: [Jonathan] Haidt shows how evolutionary, neurological and social-psychological insights are being synthesized in support of three principles: 1) Intuitive primacy, which says that human emotions and gut feelings generally drive our moral judgments; 2) Moral thinking if [sic] for social doing, […]
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Dumb Ideas

When Is a Primate a Human Ancestor?
May 14, 2007
Behold Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, an extinct fossil monkey.  It had a brain smaller than a lemon, smaller than that of modern lemurs.  Why, then, are the news media touting this as a human ancestor?     The new specimen of Aegyptopithecus is more intact and complete than previous specimens.  Two surprises were noted; the amount of […]
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Amazing Facts

Seeds Muscle Their Way into the Soil
May 11, 2007
A biological motor has been found, of all places, on the seeds of wild wheat.  A team of German and Israeli scientists watched wheat seeds and found they could dig themselves into the ground.  How can a dry seed, with no muscles, nerves or circulatory system, accomplish such a feat?  It all becomes clear when […]
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Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Design without a Designer
May 10, 2007
Apparently Francisco Ayala (UC Irvine) thinks that just stating something dogmatically is enough to end all discussion.  The scope of his paper in PNAS is grandiose and sweeping, enough to keep philosophers and theologians from around the world busy for years, but Ayala just put out his opinions without any hint of dispute, and stamped […]
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Amazing Facts

Details of Photosynthesis Coming to Light
May 9, 2007
New tools of science are unveiling the secrets of what was long a “black box” in biology: photosynthesis.  A paper in Nature last week1 described the structure of the plant PhotoSystem I complex (PSI) in near-atomic resolution.  Next day, a paper in Science2 described some of the protein interactions that occur when plants turn light […]
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