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Amazing Facts

Biological Nanomachines Inspire Nanotechnology
October 7, 2006
Nano, nano; we’re hearing that morkish prefix a lot these days.  It means 10-9 of something: most often, of meters (see powers of ten).  A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.  This gets down into the range of protein molecules and small cellular components.  A DNA molecule, for instance, is about 20 nanometers across; […]
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Dumb Ideas

More Reasons Why DNA Is Perfect for Coding
October 5, 2006
Scientists at Vanderbilt University may have been trying to explain chemical evolution, but hit on another reason DNA is the ideal molecule for carrying genetic information (see also Science Daily).  They tweaked the sugar molecule on the DNA backbone and got an unwieldy, haphazard, writhing ribbon of a molecule, unsuitable for bonding genetic code or […]
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Amazing Facts

Japanese Man Sets Memory Record
October 4, 2006
Item: a Japanese man, Akira Haraguchi (age 60), quoted pi to 100,000 decimal places, reported Live Science.  It took 16 hours to say the digits from memory.  This broke his personal best of 83,431 set in 1995, and the Guinness record of 42,195, also set in 1995. Incredible feats like this hint at the innate […]
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Amazing Facts

Whiskers Inspire Technology
October 4, 2006
The latest gadget on robots or Mars rovers could be whiskers.  These tactile sensors provide ways to see in 3D, says a report on National Geographic News.  Information about latitude, longitude and elevation can be gleaned from whiskers.  Rodents continually rotate their whiskers to gather information, but seals and sea lions let the ocean currents […]
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Dumb Ideas

Why Are Kids Hyper?  Blame Evolution
September 28, 2006
Jon Hamilton on National Public Radio was curious why his 7-year-old kid always had more energy than he did and didn’t need coffee to get him going.  So he asked an evolutionary biologist at UC Irvine and got the following explanation: “It’s fairly clear that human evolution has been strongly shaped by very powerful selection […]
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Amazing Facts

Tarantula Spins Silk from Feet
September 27, 2006
Surprise: a Costa Rican tarantula can spin silk from the tips of its feet.  A team of German and American scientists writing in Nature1 coaxed one of these heavy, hairy spiders to walk vertically up glass, and was astonished to find it ejecting silky threads that arrested its slipping and enabled it to cling.  They […]
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Dumb Ideas

Atheist Dilemma: Fight or Smooth-Talk Religion?
September 25, 2006
The unpopularity of evolutionism and the persistence of religious faith has scientific materialists confounded and dumbfounded over how to respond.  Some want to fight, some want to shrug it off, and some want to dialog with religious believers, in hopes of convincing some of them that evolution is not the bogeyman they think.  Richard Dawkins […]
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Amazing Facts

Genetic Toolkit Manages Dangerous Tools with Safety Switch and Lockbox
September 19, 2006
Laymen appreciate scientists who can express complex concepts in everyday terms.  Here’s a good example from the Wistar Institute: Around the home, regularly used tools are generally kept close at hand: a can opener in a kitchen drawer, a broom in the hall closet.  Less frequently used tools are more likely to be stored in […]
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Amazing Facts

What’s Inside a Spore?  Nanotechnology
September 17, 2006
The spores that are emitted from fungi and ferns are so tiny, the appear like dust in the wind.  Who would have ever thought such specks could exhibit nano-technological wonders like scientists have found recently: Evapo-Motors:  Scientists at U of Michigan were intrigued by how ferns turn the power of evaporation into launching pads.  The […]
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Amazing Facts

Another Rotary Machine Found in Bacteria
September 13, 2006
A molecular “garbage disposer” in the cell membrane bearing some resemblance to the rotating motor ATP synthase has been described in Nature.1  This machine, called AcrB, expels toxins from the cytoplasm through the cell membrane to the outside.  Like ATP synthase, it has three active sites at one end where the binding occurs, and it […]
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Amazing Facts

Plant Protection: A Modern Medieval Castle Story
September 13, 2006
Vigilant guards stand at the gates.  In times of peace, they let down the drawbridge, and the townspeople carry on their trade.  Farmers bring in their crops for the marketplace, and local craftsmen and pedlars keep the local economy bustling.  Yet the sentries maintain a watchful eye, aware that numerous interlopers are about.  Aliens constantly […]
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Amazing Facts

Flagellar Swimmers Attain Mechanical Nirvana
September 6, 2006
Those little germs that scientists love, E. coli – you know, the ones with the flagella that intelligent-design folk get all excited about – well, they move through the water pretty efficiently with those high-tech outboard motors of theirs.  Some Pennsylvania physicists reporting in PNAS1 measured the “swimming efficiency of bacterium Escherichia coli” and concluded, […]
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Dumb Ideas

Quote
September 6, 2006
The authors of the paper in the previous entry (09/06/2006) found that bacteria swim with near perfect propulsive efficiency.  They only mentioned evolution one time, but it’s short and to the pointless.  It wins Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: “Such measurements can shed light on how this remarkable ability to swim evolves among different […]
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Amazing Facts

Another Flagellum Excites Scientists
September 1, 2006
“The bacterial flagellar motor excites considerable interest because of the ordered expression of its genes, its regulated self-assembly, the complex interactions of its many proteins, and its startling mechanical abilities,” begins a paper in Nature by three Caltech scientists.1  They performed electron cryotomography imaging on the flagella of Triponema primita, a different critter with a […]
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Dumb Ideas

Express Your Inner Alley Oop
September 1, 2006
There’s a little Neanderthal in a lot of us, claims The Telegraph.  This is bad news and good news: People who have large noses, a stocky build and a beetle brow may indeed be a little Neanderthal, according to a genetic study.  But the good news is that other research concludes that Neanderthals were much […]
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