Mammals – Page 52

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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 […]

Mammals

Time for Mammals

April 25, 2007

Three recent news stories about mammals involve time. Does nature time things well, or do evolutionists tell swell things about time? Time will tell. Placental mammals – Watch those assumptions: How much can you trust dates that can vary by 50%? A report in Science Daily says the new “consensus” date for the appearance of […]

Dumb Ideas

Cave Chimps Suggest Cave Men

April 11, 2007

Some chimpanzees have been found in Senegal using caves for shelter from the heat. Jill Pruetz (Iowa State) took note of this and is publishing a paper about it in Primates. National Geographic speculated that this sheds light on human origins: The adaptations of savanna chimpanzees are particularly interesting to researchers because early humans are […]

Amazing Facts

Preprocessed Sound Produces Tone Map in the Brain

April 6, 2007

Most of us know that our ears involve three domains: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. We learned in school how the eardrum transmits the sound to tiny bones that transmit it to fluid in the cochlea, which stimulates hair cells that send the impulses down the auditory nerve to the […]

Genetics

Evolution to the Rescue for Abused Ape

April 5, 2007

The UK Guardian reports that Austrian courts are being asked to grant human status to an ape to allow it to sue a company for importing it into Austria for medical research. In 1999, New Zealand granted “non-human hominid” status to apes to protect them from maltreatment, but this case attempts to give full human […]

Fossils

Missing Link, or Just Jawboning About Ear Evolution?

March 19, 2007

Tetrapod vertebrates (four-footed animals with backbones) comprise a dizzying array of species, both living and extinct. When is it justifiable to arrange different forms into an ancestral evolutionary sequence, especially when some members are extinct and others are still alive today? On what basis can scientists claim that a discovery demonstrates evolution? Some Chinese scientists […]

Birds

Evolutionary Predictions Fail Observational Tests

March 8, 2007

Lately, some expectations by evolutionists have not been fulfilled. Here are several recent examples of evolutionary upsets: Dinobird genes cook up scrambled eggs: Scientists expected that the dinosaurs presumed ancestral to birds would show a decreasing genome size. The thinking was that the cost of maintaining a large genome takes its toll on flight. In […]

Mammals

Are Evolutionists Converging on a Story of Vertebrates?

January 10, 2007

Here’s what the Linnean Society said in 1909, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species, about the rise of vertebrates (fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals): “When we return home and our friends gleefully enquire, ‘What then has been decided as to the Origin of Vertebrates?’, so far we seem to have no reply […]

Fossils

Life Out of Place, Life Out of Time

December 13, 2006

Evolutionists have a standard timeline based on Darwin’s “tree of life” that indicates when complex life forms should have appeared. What happens when the wrong animal shows up in the wrong place or time? The theory is never falsified; it is just accommodated to the new data, as simply as rearranging branches on a Christmas […]

Amazing Facts

Little Animals, Big Technologies

November 28, 2006

You can’t always say bigger is better. In the animal world, some of the smallest critters have capabilities that belie their size and compare well with their less dimensionally-challenged brethren. Bee secure: Honeybees are being trained to sniff bombs. Really. Read all about it in a press release from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Bees were […]

Amazing Facts

New Technology Visualizes Animals in the Womb

November 24, 2006

Many have seen the videos of human babies developing in the womb, but what do animals look like before birth? Rhiannon Edward began an article in The Scotsman with some glimpses: An unborn elephant, tiny but perfect in every way. A dolphin swimming in the womb, just as it will have to swim in the […]

Fossils

Wanted Dead or Alive: New Mammals

October 18, 2006

Do we know all our fellow mammals? Further research has uncovered new furry creatures, fur sure. Furthermore, some are dead and some are alive and well: Weird Tooth: An “ancient mammal that defies classification” has been given a name, at least. EurekAlert reported that Horolodectes sunae, found 30 years ago in Alberta, remains a mystery: […]

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 […]

Early Man

Should Elephants and Lions Be Reintroduced to North America?

October 2, 2006

Believe it or not, some scientists think large mammals that existed in North America in prehistoric times should be brought back. This is called “rewilding,” in hopes of healing some of the ecological disruption caused when early humans “played a significant role in their demise 13,000 years ago.” A dozen scientists provided a detailed proposal […]

Genetics

Voles Throw Evolutionary Genetics Into Disarray

September 16, 2006

What is it with voles? These little gopher-like furballs with beady eyes, short tails and tiny ears are giving evolutionary geneticists fits. A press release from Purdue University states, “Purdue University research has shown that the vole, a mouselike rodent, is not only the fastest evolving mammal, but also harbors a number of puzzling genetic […]

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