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Mammals

How a Biotoxin Evolved
November 2, 2009
What do shrews and lizards have in common?  Not much, but two species developed the same toxin in their digestive enzymes, giving them both a poisonous bite.  Science Daily said a harmless digestive enzyme became overactive through three related changes.  “What had been a mild anticoagulant in the salivary glands of both species has become […]
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Amazing Facts

To Advance Science, Imitate Nature
November 1, 2009
Biomimetics – the imitation of nature – continues to be one of the hottest areas in science.  Here are a few of the latest findings coming from the world of living creatures. Fish robot:  National Geographic News shows a photo of the latest thing in underwater robotics: a robotic submarine modeled after the Amazonian knifefish.  […]
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Fossils

No Evolution in 58 Million Years
October 30, 2009
“Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida.  The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate […]
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Fossils

Trilobites Found in Fool’s Gold: What Does It Mean?
October 27, 2009
Trilobites are icons of the Cambrian and Ordovician periods.  When thousands are found in beds over a wide area encased in pyrite, with no sign of decay, what does it mean?  A team publishing their findings in Geology suggests it means rapid burial.1  Here’s the abstract from their paper: Pyritization of soft tissues is extremely […]
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Dumb Ideas

How the Octopus Built Its Own Brain for Better Fishing
October 25, 2009
The octopus was glad to see fish evolve, but needed a bigger brain to catch them, so it evolved one of the most complex brains in the animal kingdom.  Is that the gist of this story in the Science blog Origins?  Greg Miller wrote in the style of a children’s storybook: Cephalopods—octopuses, squid, and their […]
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Biomimetics

Introducing the Maple-Copter
October 21, 2009
Plants are not as stationary as one might think.  Parts of them, like seeds, can travel for miles.  One good example is the maple seed.  Its little helicopter seeds can catch an updraft and fly a long distance from the tree.  Now, engineers at University of Maryland have imitated its physics and designed a radio-controlled […]
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Dumb Ideas

Beethoven: It All Began With a Thump
October 17, 2009
Live Science in all seriousness, “When monkeys drum, they activate brain networks linked with communication, new findings that suggest a common origin of primate vocal and nonvocal communication systems and shed light on the origins of language and music.”     Choi reported on work at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics to determine […]
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Dumb Ideas

Fossil Said to Enlighten Evolution of the Ear
October 13, 2009
Did mammal ear bones evolve?  If so, it was not a straightforward Darwinian progression.  Authors of a paper in Science who announced a new Cretaceous mammal fossil from China had to invoke convoluted explanations to keep the evolution story intact. Science Daily shows an artist’s conception of Maotherium, a chipmunk-sized mammal said to have lived […]
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Amazing Facts

How to Copy a Butterfly Wing
October 9, 2009
Here’s what you have to do to copy a butterfly wing without destroying it: create compounds using Germanium, Selenium and Stibium.  Combine thermal evaporation and substrate rotation in a low pressure chamber.  Immerse in an aqueous orthophosphoric acid solution to dissolve the chitin.  If you are lucky, you can copy the delicate nanostructure of a […]
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Birds

Dino Clawprints in the Sandstones of Time
October 6, 2009
Some of the largest dinosaur tracks ever found have been uncovered in France.  The BBC News has a picture of tracks nearly 5 feet across made by sauropods that weighed 30 tonnes.  Tracks of ornithischian dinosaurs in South Africa are being analyzed for clues to dinosaur behavior, reported Science Daily.  The team believes that tracks […]
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Birds

Anchiornis: Foot Feathers Confuse Bird Evolution Story
October 1, 2009
The paper on Anchiornis huxleyii was published in Nature,1 along with a News article about it in the same issue by Lawrence Witmer.2  In addition, popular reports were printed by the BBC News, Live Science and Science Daily.     The popular reports are focusing on Xing Xu’s claim that this fossil removes the last […]
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Birds

Ho-Hum, Another Feathered Dinosaur
September 25, 2009
Another Chinese fossil its discoverers are calling a “feathered dinosaur” has been announced by Nature News.  It is ostensibly a more complete specimen of Anchiornis huxleyii that was announced last January (see 01/21/2009).  The full paper on this specimen is to be published in Nature next week.     The fossil is said to have […]
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Biology

Human Evolution Celebration Exposed
September 24, 2009
The evolutionary story of human origins is often told like a cultural myth that is intuitively obvious.  Humans emerged in Africa after their ancestors came down from the trees and walked upright.  They began to hunt with stone tools and used fire.  They migrated north out of Africa and populated Europe, overtaking the Neanderthals who […]
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Amazing Facts

Lotus Glass Repels Water, Dirt, Bacteria
September 23, 2009
Imagine never having to wash your windows again.  That would be a huge boon not only for window washers on skyscrapers, but for astronauts on the space shuttle or space station.  It may become a reality, thanks to the lotus plant.     Science Daily reported on work by a company in Atlanta that has […]
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Early Man

Stone Tools May Be Crocodile Stomach Stones
September 21, 2009
“Were crocodiles responsible for the stones we call tools?” is the title of a surprising letter to the editor in Nature last week.1  Patrick Dempsey (the archaeologist, not the actor) raised a possibility that paleoanthropologists and the journals have been making a big mistake for a long time.  He asked, “Could Nature have been unknowingly […]
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