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Fossils

Oxygen YoYos and Wings
October 18, 2006
Molecular oxygen: you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it.  We breathe it in constantly or else we would turn blue and die within minutes.  Yet we take antioxidants because of the harm that oxygen radicals can wreak in our cells.  Like fire, it is a useful substance, but only when tightly […]
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Amazing Facts

Self-cleaning Surfaces Take the Lotus Position
October 17, 2006
Photovoltaic cells and microelectromechanical systems have a problem: they collect dirt.  What to do?  Look to the lotus, says a EurekAlert article about research at Georgia Institute of Technology.  Dr. C. P. Wong and team took inspiration from the self-cleaning surfaces of lotus leaves.  “Despite growing in muddy conditions, the leaves and flowers remain clean […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Amazing Facts

Tarantula Spins Silk from Feet
September 27, 2006
Surprise: a Costa Rican tarantula can spin silk from the tips of its feet.  A team of German and American scientists writing in Nature1 coaxed one of these heavy, hairy spiders to walk vertically up glass, and was astonished to find it ejecting silky threads that arrested its slipping and enabled it to cling.  They […]
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Birds

Was Archaeopteryx a Biplane?
September 22, 2006
A U of Calgary PhD student thinks Archaeopteryx flew on all fours.  Nick Longrich thinks the early bird had feathers on its legs that gave it additional lift.  The discovery of some Chinese fossil birds with feathers on the legs lends support to his interpretation, he says. “The idea of a multi-winged Archaeopteryx has been […]
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Marine Biology

Marine Mimics Found Off Thailand
September 18, 2006
Live Science reported findings from a rich seascape off the coast of Thailand: “Scientists combing through undersea fauna off Indonesia’s Papua province said Monday they had discovered dozens of new species, including a shark that walks on its fins and a shrimp that looks like a praying mantis.”     National Geographic posted even more […]
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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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Genetics

Do Mammals Depend on Virus Help?
September 12, 2006
Researchers found that sheep depend on a retrovirus to become pregnant.  Retroviruses (those that can insert themselves into a genome of a host cell) include the dreaded HIV and generally have a bad reputation.  Remnant retroviruses are prevalent in many animal species and have been considered a class of “junk DNA,” having mutated away their […]
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Biomimetics

Yoke Up Those Bacteria
September 6, 2006
My, how history repeats itself – often in unexpected ways.  In ancient times, our ancestors got the heavy work done by hitching oxen, horses or slaves (like Samson, see pictures 1 and 2) to a harness and making them turn a grinding wheel.  The same principle is now on the cutting edge of modern applied […]
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Biomimetics

Grass Shack Makes a Comeback
August 28, 2006
Oh, what a feeling: Toyota Roof Garden wants to replace your roof with grass.  Bill Christensen at Live Science says that the car company’s grass tiles include imbedded irrigation piping, provide good thermal insulation and reflect less urban heat to the atmosphere.  The special grass only needs mowing once a year.  Company website (Japanese): Toyota […]
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Amazing Facts

Birds Excel in Distance, Harmony
August 9, 2006
Bird feats are outstanding.  Two notable cases were announced this week: Air Marathon:  The longest animal migration in the animal kingdom is performed by the sooty shearwater, reported National Geographic News.  They migrate 40,000 miles a year from New Zealand to the North Pacific, in complex figure-eight patterns that touch the coasts of South America, […]
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Dumb Ideas

Can Evolution Run in Reverse?
August 7, 2006
Evolutionists in Utah are claiming to have run the evolutionary tape in reverse, says the BBC News: “US researchers have taken a mouse back in time some 500 million years by reversing the process of evolution.”  How can this be?  By engineering its genetic blueprint, they have rebuilt a gene that was present in primitive […]
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Amazing Facts

Bacteria Rule the World – Benevolently
August 2, 2006
We should love bacteria, not annihilate them.  Bacteria are our friends, according to Dianne K. Newman of Caltech:1 As a microbiologist, I’m appalled when I go to buy soap or dishwashing detergent, because these days it’s hard to find anything that doesn’t say ‘antibacterial’ on it…. It’s a commonly held fallacy that all bacteria are […]
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Amazing Facts

Eye Sends Information at Ethernet Rates
July 27, 2006
Neuroscientists from Pennsylvania and New Jersey calculated the information rate of the eye.  Using guinea pigs (real guinea pigs, not humans as guinea pigs), they came up with a number and interpolated it for humans: In the classic “What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain,” Lettvin and colleagues showed that different types of retinal […]
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