Mammals – Page 45

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Beavers: Natural Engineers Do It Better

January 4, 2011

A curious case of biomimetics was reported by Science Daily: engineers imitating beavers. River restoration is a big project in many states that would like to return their rivers to the way the colonists first found them. “When engineers restore rivers,” the article began, “one Kansas State University professor hopes they’ll keep a smaller engineer […]

Early Man

News on the Mind

December 6, 2010

Here are a dozen recent stories dealing with brains, the mind, perception, motivation and other aspects of psychology and neuroscience. Nature and nurture: PhysOrg claims that scientists at SMU have resolved the nature vs nurture debate with a hybrid approach. Whether it satisfies critics remains to be seen. Perhaps they are still thinking inside the […]

Mammals

Science Done by Humans Is Mushy

December 3, 2010

Discoveries in science must be mediated by flawed agents: human beings. Though the most hardened scientific realists maintain strong beliefs in external reality, the perceived reality is mediated by senses, then interpreted by minds that are not omniscient. Those are some of the reasons that science keeps changing, as illustrated by some recent examples: Endangered […]

Darwin and Evolution

Mammals Partied When Dinosaurs Left

November 29, 2010

A research team headed by a biology professor at the University of New Mexico are claiming that mammals had a field day when the dinosaurs went extinct. They got bigger and more diverse, filling in the ecological wasteland left by the missing giant reptiles. Their analysis was published in Science.1 In addition, they […]

Amazing Facts

Boggle Your Brain

November 19, 2010

A new animation of a trip through a brain shows mind-boggling complexity in more detail than ever before. The animation, posted by freelance journalist Elizabeth A. Moore on CNET News, represents years of work by Stanford University School of Medicine. Using green fluorescent protein in a mouse brain to light up synapses, and photographing the […]

Amazing Facts

Windows into the Mind

November 3, 2010

What would it be like to see things for the first time? You can watch the reaction on Live Science #1 and Live Science #2. Blind patients were implanted with a microchip that allowed them, for the first time, to roughly sense the visual input of objects in front of them. Amazing as it was, […]

Bible and Theology

Mind Matters

October 22, 2010

The conundrum of how reasoning could have emerged by an undirected evolutionary process persists. Atheists and materialists are convinced that natural selection is up to the task, while theists strongly disagree and use human rationality as evidence for creation by an intelligent source (usually God). Perhaps a few recent findings can illuminate on the options. […]

Amazing Facts

Migrating Whales Fertilize the Sea

October 15, 2010

Two recent discoveries about whales show them to be not only benign but beneficial. PhysOrg reported on work at the University of Vermont that indicates whale waste carries nitrogen nutrients to the depths of the ocean, fertilizing the food chain and increasing the production of ocean fisheries. In another article on PhysOrg, a […]

Darwin and Evolution

The Evolution of Speech, and v.v.

September 23, 2010

The brain just got more complex – that is, the part that helps us speak. “Complex brain landscape controls speech,” reported PhysOrg, discussing findings by German researchers that show Broca’s region, implicated in speech disorders when damaged, appears to be “a much more complexly structured centre of language than was previously believed.” Not just a […]

Amazing Facts

Archer Fish See Like People

September 13, 2010

An archer fish can spit out a man’s cigarette. That’s actually a humorous scene at the end of a video clip on The Scientist that talks about the amazing eyes of this underwater sharpshooter. New research shows that these freshwater fish, known for their ability to spit bugs off bushes, have a mammal-like ability to […]

Darwin and Evolution

Evolution Storytellers Unrepentant

September 10, 2010

Evolutionists have been criticized for telling “just-so stories”1 for decades and decades, even by other evolutionists (see 08/08/2010), yet the storytelling continues, as recent examples in the news media illustrate. Blame Mom: In its “Science News” category, Science Daily trumpeted the headline, “Acting Selfish? Blame Your Mother!” In the article, we are told, “The fact […]

Darwin and Evolution

God Forbid: Public School Field Trips to a Creation Zoo?

August 6, 2010

Is it legal? Can a public school take kids to a creation zoo? Environment reporter Michael Marshall at New Scientist just about had a fit when he heard that “A UK zoo that pushes a creationist message has been approved as a destination for school trips by the government.” That could never happen in America, […]

Birds

Getting Animals from Here to There

July 30, 2010

The world is a big place, and most animals are small. Yet many animals are found far from where their presumed ancestors lived. Most birds, naturally, can fly long distances, and some sea creatures can cross the oceans with the help of currents. That cannot explain all the cases, however. Here are some attempts by […]

Cell Biology

Darwinists Get Sexy

July 13, 2010

The origin of sex titillates many evolutionary biologists. On the one hand, animals and plants have such interesting ways of getting together. But on the other hand, sex seems too costly to have originated by natural selection. Some recent articles provide new evolutionary speculations on the origin of sex – but simultaneously undermine previous speculations. […]

Birds

Humans Got Birdbrains by Convergent Evolution

July 2, 2010

Scientists are learning that birds have brains remarkably similar to those of mammals. This is contrary to a century of belief, PhysOrg said. How did such similarities evolve for groups of animals so widely separated? To explain it, evolutionists pulled out one of their common explanations: convergent evolution. “For more than a century,” […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="12"]