Biology – Page 131

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Amphibian Imprints Found

October 30, 2007

Full-body imprints of amphibians claimed to be 330 million years old have been reported from Pennsylvania. “The imprints show the unmistakably webbed feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs.” The story in a press release from the Geological Society of America […]

Dumb Ideas

Machiavellian Monkeys Made Us Compassionate

October 28, 2007

Love, loyalty, patriotism – all the qualities that imbue a romantic novel with soul – came from Rhesus monkeys acting badly. This is the belief of Dario Maestripieri, a primatologist and Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, according to an article in Science Daily. Dr. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Amazing Facts

Make Your Face Sparkle With Diatoms

October 10, 2007

Human engineers may join forces with cellular architects to produce the next generation of paints, cosmetics and holograms, reported Science Daily. Scientists are finding ways to harness the rapid growth of diatoms. Manufacturing consumer products with these properties currently requires energy-intensive, high-temperature, high-pressure industrial processes that create tiny artificial reflectors. But farming diatom shells, which […]

Biomimetics

Nanofabrication Imitates Shells, Butterflies

October 7, 2007

A new plastic “strong as steel” has been manufactured according to the specs in seashells, reported PhysOrg. “By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that’s as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.” (See these previous entries about how marine organisms manufacture their shells: 06/26/2003, […]

Amazing Facts

Crow Cam Lets Scientists See Intelligence at Work

October 7, 2007

Ever want to fly like a bird? Now you can do the next best thing: get a tail-feather view of what it is like to fly from branch to branch. University of Oxford scientists attached a small video camera to the underside of a New Caledonian Crow to watch it in the wild, reported PhysOrg. […]

Biomimetics

New Atomizer Mimics Bombardier Beetle

October 2, 2007

There’s a new technology coming to market, thanks to a little bug. The bombardier beetle has long been used by creationists as a creature with a weapon against evolutionary theory. Its tightly-integrated combustion apparatus would be useless or dangerous to the beetle unless all the parts worked together from the start. This, creationists argue, is […]

Amazing Facts

Bacteria and Plants Know Network Tech

October 1, 2007

An article on Science Daily says, “plants have their own chat systems that they can use to warn each other.” Many herbal plants such as strawberry, clover, reed and ground elder naturally form networks. Individual plants remain connected with each other for a certain period of time by means of runners. These connections enable the […]

Biomimetics

Thermodynamics: The Real Theory of Everything

September 23, 2007

Need a theory of everything? Try thermodynamics. Mark Haw reviewed a new book by Peter Atkins on the subject in Nature,1 Four Laws that Drive the Universe (Oxford, 2007). He had high praise for the achievements of the “19th century grandees” Joule, Maxwell and Kelvin: Thermodynamics ought to be the cornerstone of any scientist’s understanding […]

Dumb Ideas

Early Beetle Was Armed

September 23, 2007

According to Live Science, a beetle preserved in amber, dated at 100 million years old, was caught in the act of using chemical warfare. “Soldier beetles” capable of this kind of advanced defense system were not thought to have evolved till 60 million years later. This article contains several statements worthy of the […]

Birds

Was Velociraptor a Dragon?

September 22, 2007

As if Velociraptor, the terror of Jurassic Park, was not scary enough, some scientists are now saying it was feathered. (This, of course, does not imply it could fly after its human prey like some movie dragon.) The latest claim in Science is based on the apparent presence of “quill knobs” on the radius bone […]

Dumb Ideas

Early Reptile Had Modern Ears

September 18, 2007

Modern ears are nothing new; they go back 260 million years. That’s the gist of a paper in PLoS ONE that reported on a Russian reptile fossil.1 The research team was surprised to discover that the creature had impedance-matched ears, a novelty thought to have evolved 50 million years later. Somehow this innovation survived one […]

Amazing Facts

New World Record for Winged Migration

September 11, 2007

The BBC News reports that a female bar-tailed godwit flew 11,500km (almost 7200 mi) nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. The journey took about a week. Observers at Massey University used electronic tags to catalog the birds’ flight. This distance is nearly double what ornithologists used to consider an “extremely long” flight. This […]

Birds

Dinosaurs Stretched, Shrunk and Twisted Into Birds

September 6, 2007

Size matters, thought paleontologists envisioning the evolution of birds from dinosaurs. The old story was that dinosaurs shrunk as their arms were becoming wings. That view has been challenged by a new fossil reported in Science.1 Alan H. Turner (American Museum of Natural History) and four others reported a “basal dromeosaurid” that was small long […]

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