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Intelligent Design

Evolutionary Science Reporting Battles Creationists
October 24, 2007
If creationism is so discredited as to not warrant any further discussion, some science writers are sure going out of their way to refute it.  Some recent examples: Eye of the Hydra:  Little sea creatures known as hydrae have light-sensitive molecules called opsins, reported Science Daily.  Scientists think the opsin proteins, which exist all over […]
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Amazing Facts

Inner Ear More Complex than Thought
October 13, 2007
Another level of complexity has been added to the mystery of hearing.  Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that another membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear, once thought to be passive, is actively involved in transmitting sound waves to the hair cell receptors.  Their work was published in PNAS.1     […]
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Mammals

Whale Sonar: Necessity Is the Mother of Invention
September 5, 2007
Biosonar is a complex ability possessed by toothed whales and dolphins, bats and some birds.  It includes both the ability to produce signals and to process the echoes to locate prey.  How could such a system evolve?  Scientists at UC Berkeley proposed an answer.  The press release promised a developing story: Behind the sailor’s lore […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Evolution Takes Credit
August 24, 2007
It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but evolution often just takes.
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Early Man

Fossil Gorilla Forces Hominid Ancestor Earlier
August 23, 2007
A set of gorilla teeth found in Ethiopia pushes the evolutionary story of a split between apes and humans back almost twice as far as previously thought.  Nature reported the fossil announcement that estimated the date of the teeth as 10.5-11 million years old.1  The prior estimate for a human-ape divergence was about 6 million. […]
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Human Body

Monkeys Prefer the Sound of Silence
August 5, 2007
Given a choice, chimpanzees choose silence over music.  The Random Samples page in Science1 mentioned experiments by scientists from MIT and Harvard where monkeys were given a choice of booths playing a flute lullaby, a Mozart concerto, techno-rock, and silence.  Between the musical booths, “The monkeys spent an average of about two-thirds of their time […]
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Amazing Facts

Motorized Ears Give Mammals Acoustic Acuity
July 31, 2007
f=”crev03.htm#amazing11″>03/27/2001), we reported on the discovery of prestin, a motor protein that acts as an amplifier in the inner ear.  One of the fastest-acting molecular motors known (02/21/2002), prestin works by stiffening the rod-shaped cell body with its cilia.  Somehow, the action of this motor protein amplifies hearing in mammalian ears by several orders of […]
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Early Man

But Is It Evolution?
July 14, 2007
Every week the news media cheerfully present the latest finding that is claimed to be evidence for evolution.  The following recent examples, though, might leave a perceptive reader wondering, “What’s Darwin got to do with it?” Slow? No!:  If you thought evolution was a gradual process too slow to watch, get a load of this: […]
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Fossils

Baby Frozen Mammoth Found Intact
July 10, 2007
The BBC News has a picture of a baby frozen mammoth that was found intact in northwest Siberia.  The article says it is one of the best-preserved frozen mammoths ever found, complete with eyes, fur, and trunk.  One investigator said, “In terms of its state of preservation, this is the world’s most valuable discovery” of […]
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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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Early Man

Chimp Altruism: Is it All True?
June 27, 2007
Humans are the only inhabitants of earth that are masters of true altruism: helping others with no thought of reward.  Previous experiments had shown that chimpanzees lack this trait.  Given an opportunity to help another chimp get a banana, they showed no pattern of charity.  New experiments by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for […]
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Cell Biology

Crisis at Both Ends of Darwin’s Tree
June 21, 2007
Two assumptions about evolution – one about the earliest multicellular organisms and one about the rise of mammals – have run into trouble.  Eukarya sans Mechanista:  “In the absence of direct evidence, science should proceed cautiously with conjecture,” wisely advised Anthony Poole and David Penny in Nature.1  They scorned the researchers who glibly invent fables […]
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Mammals

Why Do Some Fruit Bats Have Color Vision?
June 12, 2007
One would think bats don’t need color, since most fly at night.  That’s what scientists thought, reported Max Planck Institute, until color-vision cones were found in some species.  Some species have two cone types, giving them bichromatic vision, and some have only one, making them effectively color blind.     Bats come in two orders: […]
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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

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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