Mammals – Page 46

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Clock Gene Same in Humans and Birds

April 29, 2010

Science Daily, this “not only sheds light on how our internal annual body clocks function but also shows a key link between birds and mammals that has been conserved over 300 million years.” Mammals, including humans, have a hormone released by the pituitary gland that controls melatonin levels – known to affect the […]

Darwin and Evolution

New Theory on Evolution of Bat Flight

April 27, 2010

How did bats evolve the ability to fly? Evolution helped them out by providing them with higher energy. After all, “Flight is among the most energy-consuming activities” in the animal kingdom, said a team of Chinese and Canadian scientists reporting in PNAS,1 so it’s obvious that evolution must have provided the genes to get the […]

Amazing Facts

Elephants Equipped with 4WD

March 30, 2010

An elephant is built like a four-wheel drive vehicle, say scientists from the Royal Veterinary College in London. Unlike other mammals, which divide acceleration and braking between the front and rear legs, “power is applied independently to each limb,” reported PhysOrg from a paper in PNAS.1 “Elephant limbs operate analogously to four-wheel-drive vehicles,” the authors […]

Cell Biology

What Good Is Natural Selection without Progress?

March 8, 2010

Three papers recently claim to have seen natural selection. None of them, however, identified a functional advantage that would have tied changes to novel benefits that could improve a species. Yeast: “New Type of Genetic Variation Could Strengthen Natural Selection,” trumpeted a headline in Science Daily. It was about a study of two varieties of […]

Darwin and Evolution

Ida Not a Human Ancestor

March 3, 2010

If Ida known then what I know now: the media-frenzied presentation of Ida (Darwinius masillae) as a distant relative of human beings last year has been debunked. “Many lines of evidence indicate that Darwinius has nothing at all to do with human evolution,” said Chris Kirk (U of Texas) in an article on Science Daily. […]

Darwin and Evolution

More Surprises for Darwin

February 11, 2010

It’s not uncommon for theories to have to deal with anomalies, but Darwinism sure seems to get more than its share. Here are some recent examples. Fossils lie: Fossils preserve unmistakable clues about past life, right? Not so fast. Nature reported that “Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation.”1 The way early […]

Darwin and Evolution

Convergence: Explanation or Rescue Device?

January 26, 2010

The news media are telling us that bats and dolphins both hit on the same genetic pathway to evolve echolocation – even though they are on vastly different evolutionary lineages and use echolocation differently (one in air, one in water). Since it is inconceivable that a putative shrew-like common ancestor of these very different animals […]

Dumb Ideas

Chimps Produce Movie

January 25, 2010

The BBC is going to air a movie made by chimpanzees. (Note: This is not a Planet of the Apes remake.) A primatologist working on her PhD gave some chimps at the Edinburgh zoo a “Chimpcam,” a camcorder in a “chimp-proof” box, to see what they would come up with. “Despite the fact that the […]

Darwin and Evolution

Evolutionary Biogeography Requires Imagination

January 22, 2010

Biogeography – the study of the distribution of species – has been an important part of evolutionary theory, and has often been used as evidence for evolution. Some recent findings about plants and animals should give scientists caution about trying to divine too much evolutionary history from locations of present-day organisms and fossils. […]

Darwin and Evolution

Dogs for Darwin

January 21, 2010

Science Daily shamelessly announced, “‘Survival of the Cutest’ Proves Darwin Right.” Chris Klingenberg and Abby Drake, who published a study on mammal skull shapes in American Naturalist on dog breeds, said, “This study illustrates the power of Darwinian selection with so much variation produced in such a short period of time. The evidence […]

Darwin and Evolution

Evidence for Evolution, or for Uncontroversial Variation?

December 24, 2009

Science papers and articles often announce promising new evidence for evolution. To distinguish Darwinian evolution from creation, though, requires evidence of a certain magnitude. The staunchest Biblical creationist allows for a great deal of variation within kinds. When evidences for evolution are announced, do they rise to the level of change Darwin theorized – like […]

Fossils

Evolution News From Down Unda

December 18, 2009

Australia and New Zealand contain some of the most unique and distinctive flora and fauna in the world. Evolutionary explanations for some of these animals and plants have come to light in the press recently. Koala: Did you know there are extinct koalas? Science Daily reported about work by Aussie biologists to understand the evolution […]

Education

Debunker Busters

December 17, 2009

Often in science reports, new findings debunk previously held beliefs. But then, a thoughtful reader might ask, didn’t the previously held belief debunk a belief prior to that? Sometimes it gets difficult to believe the current belief has any credibility, when the debunkers turn on each other. A dilemma about dilemmas: Psychologists and philosophers have […]

Birds

Contenders Vie for Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week

December 13, 2009

Creation-Evolution Headlines needs reader feedback to rank this week’s winners. Some of these articles are so over the top, giving Darwin credit for anything and everything, it’s a wonder the Darwinists themselves don’t censor them – just to avoid public embarrassment. Evolve! Sing Along: New Scientist is letting you take part in the evolutionary process […]

Dinosaurs

Darwin vs. the Fossils

December 11, 2009

What could be more iconic to evolution than dinosaurs and the horse series? Museums often display skeletons of these animals as proof of evolution. The real story told in scientific papers is often very different. Two recent studies present major, serious challenges to Darwin’s theory. Horse series: The old straight-line chart of horse evolution from […]

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