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Amazing Facts

Respect the Conch Shell
February 19, 2004
Engineers and materials scientists seem to never run out of examples in nature that should fill us with awe.  In the Feb. 19 issue of Nature,1 Rosamund Daw brings our attention to the construction ability of the conch shell: Giant conches are seldom treated with the respect they deserve.  Their impressive shells are prized as […]
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Amazing Facts

Birds Are Memory Champs
February 17, 2004
We humans lose our keys and often can’t remember the location of half a dozen identical items.  “Maybe it takes a bird brain to find the car keys,” teases Susan Milius in the cover story of the Feb. 14 issue of Science News.1  Ornithologists have been intrigued with how birds remember where they stash their […]
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Fossils

Oldest Fossil Insect Alleged
February 11, 2004
In a pattern that sounds familiar, an insect fossil has been found that (1) is the oldest ever discovered, and (2) shows that “winged flight may have emerged earlier than previously thought.”  Estimates put this fossil at about 400 million years old, among the first creatures to colonize the land.  Though wing impressions were not […]
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Fossils

Hundreds of Whales Buried Suddenly in Diatoms
February 2, 2004
A remarkable fossil find has been found in Peru: 346 whales buried in diatomaceous earth.  The preservation of the whales is so pristine and complete, the authors of the paper in the Feb. 2004 issue of Geology1 conclude that the whales had to be buried rapidly, in days or weeks.  If so, it represents a […]
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Birds

La Brea Tar Pits Trap Scientists
January 24, 2004
Sid Perkins of Science News dropped in at La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, and got stuck, not in tar, but in the sticky evolutionary interpretations of these world-famous fossil deposits.  This fossil bed, right in one of the ritziest parts of Los Angeles (adjacent to the County Art Museum), Perkins whimsically calls “L.A.’s […]
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Fossils

Chinese Puzzle: New Primate Fossil Raises Eyebrows
January 1, 2004
A new fossil primate skull from China, alleged to be 55 million years old, provides “much-needed substantial evidence of early primates in Asia,” says Robert Martin (Field Museum, Chicago), reporting in the Jan. 1 issue of Nature.1  But “interpretation of the creature’s eye size and activity pattern,” he says, “will spark debate.”  (This is code […]
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Birds

How Darwinism Produces Job Security
December 22, 2003
One thing Darwinism has going for it: it provides endless opportunities to research stories that are nearly impossible to prove.     A case in point was provided in the Dec. 18 issue of Nature.1  John R. Hutchinson (Royal Veterinary College, UK), in a News and Views article on bird evolution, reviewed the new angle […]
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Bible and Theology

Creator Lord Jesus Praised at 100th Anniversary of Flight
December 17, 2003
When the NASA master of ceremonies told the crowd he was very honored to introduce Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham, to give the invocation at today’s 100th Anniversary of Flight celebration at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, he apparently did not know what he was in for.  Mrs. Lotz gave a forceful, impassioned, politically-incorrect […]
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Fossils

Despite New Fossil, Origin of Marsupials Still Puzzles Evolutionists
December 12, 2003
Although the earliest known marsupial has just been found in China1, Richard L. Cifelli and Brian M. Davis, writing in the Dec. 12 issue of Science2 consider the phylogenetic trees of marsupial and placental mammals conflicting and puzzling.  Problems include (emphasis added): Switcheroo:  Fossil marsupials are predominately found in North America, but living ones are […]
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Mammals

Hunters Are Interfering With Evolution
December 10, 2003
Evolutionists don’t seem to know what to make of research about how hunters are affecting the evolution of bighorn sheep.  The paper published in the Dec. 11 issue of Nature1 was noted by a reviewer in the same issue2, who titled his review, “Undesirable evolutionary consequences of trophy hunting,” yet humans must be considered part […]
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Fossils

Got That?  The Complex Story of African Mammal Evolution
December 3, 2003
The article by Jean-Jacques Jaeger in the Dec. 4 issue of Nature1 is pretty upbeat about the evolutionary history of African mammals, but takes a bit of untangling to follow.     He begins confidently, “For some 40 million years, the Afro-Arabian landmass existed in splendid isolation.  A newly described fossil fauna from the end […]
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Fossils

How Bambi Gave Rise to Moby Dick
December 20, 2002
The title of this entry, in Kipling Just-So Story format, is only slightly modified from an article from The Guardian, titled, “How Bambi evolved into Moby-Dick.”  This is not a joke; check on the link and see.     The article is about the latest fossil claimed to be ancestral to whales.  Hans Thewissen (Northeastern […]
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Biomimetics

Intelligent Design Put to Good Scientific Use
November 20, 2002
51; Evolutionists try to portray intelligent design as something outside of science that threatens science.  Actually, the techniques of intelligent design are hard at work within science, and have been for some time.  Examples are not hard to find on a variety of fronts. Archaeology:  “The ability to tell the difference between crystals that formed […]
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Amazing Facts

Sponges Use Fiber Optics for Interior Lighting
November 20, 2002
51; Sponges are among the simplest of multicellular organisms, but they contain an advanced human technology: fiber optics.  In a case of reverse biomimetics, scientists have determined that one of the products of proud human engineering was already at work in a lowly sponge.     Fiber optical properties of sponge spicules was already known, […]
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Amazing Facts

Flight Design Inspires Research
November 20, 2002
There are flying machines hovering over our planet that can turn on a dime, making rapid 90-degree turns.  Their instruments process images ten times faster than we can, and possess precision gyros that tell them how fast they are rotating in space – yet their computers are smaller than the head of a pin.  They’re […]
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