Biology – Page 143

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Horse Evolution Tale Gets Hairier

June 30, 2005

If you thought the story of horse evolution was well understood as a poster child of Darwinism at work, consider what Weinstock et al. say in a preprint in PLoS Biology:1 The rich fossil record of horses has made them a classic example of evolutionary processes. However, while the overall picture of equid evolution is […]

Human Body

Nose Knows More than Math Pros Suppose

June 27, 2005

The aroma of coffee, of a steak, of cherries – these smells are all composed of dozens if not hundreds of separate molecules, yet our brains immediately recognize them each as a coherent whole. How does the nose and the brain process all this information? This is the subject of an article in the Caltech […]

Cell Biology

Reverse-Engineering Biological Networks Challenges Caltech Scientists

June 25, 2005

Evolutionists love to quote Dobzhansky saying, “Nothing in biology makes sense apart from evolution.” An article in the current issue of Caltech’s magazine Engineering and Science,1 however, might change that proverb to, “Nothing in biology makes sense apart from information theory and systems engineering.” The article makes no mention of evolution, but rather looks at […]

Birds

Wind Tunnel Experiments Reveal Dynamics of Hummingbird Flight

June 24, 2005

Scientists have found out that hummingbirds and insects don’t hover in the same way. Insects support 50% of their weight on both up and down strokes, but hummingbirds support 75% on the downstroke and 25% on the upstroke. This was published in Nature this week,1 and summarized on Science Daily. The latter article […]

Mammals

Lions Guard Kidnap Victim in Ethiopia

June 22, 2005

Some news stories make you wonder about divine providence. Netscape News reported a story of lions that rescued a kidnapped Ethiopian girl who was being beaten by seven men trying to force her to marry one of them. In Ethiopia, men will often beat and rape a woman who resists a forced marriage; up to […]

Botany

Roses Are Red, Darwinists Are Blue

June 9, 2005

Roses have a special pigment molecule, a particular form of anthocyanin, responsible for all the rich red-to-blue shades in the petals that delight gardeners and attract pollinating insects. This molecule is different from the pigments in every other flowering plant; it is glycosylated at two positions instead of one.2 A single enzyme does the job […]

Botany

Darwin Is Alive and Well at Down House

June 7, 2005

Chris Darwin, that is – the great, great grandson of Charles, and his fellow descendants Erasmus, Sarah, Allegra, Randal Keynes, and Leo Darwin Vogel. The family members are retracing his footsteps in the fields around his old house by inventorying the plants, reports the BBC News. The survey will help show if the flowering plants […]

Birds

Soft T-Rex Tissue Claimed Bird-Like; Age Ignored

June 3, 2005

More details about the soft tissue found in a T. rex thigh bone (see 03/24/2005 story) were published in Science this week.1 Mary Schweitzer’s team claims to have found evidence of medullary bone [MB], a type of mineralized and vascularized bony tissue found only in certain birds during ovulation as a buffer against calcium loss. […]

Terrestrial Zoology

All You Wanted to Know About Spider Webs, Except Their Evolution

May 25, 2005

Each issue of Current Biology contains a Primer on some interesting subject. The May 24 issue had one about spider webs.1 Fritz Vollrath shared some amazing details about this unique product of the lowly spider, but gave a strange explanation for how the capability to spin strong-as-steel nets evolved. First, the factoids: Structure: …the… common […]

Mammals

New Rodent Discovered in Southeast Asia

May 16, 2005

“To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary,” says Dr. Robert Timmons of a stubby-legged, hairy rodent discovered in Thailand. “For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered.” It’s not exactly like a squirrel, rat, chinchilla or guinea pig: it belongs in […]

Terrestrial Zoology

Honeybee Dance Wins Ovation

May 13, 2005

In the 1960s, Karl von Frisch announced the surprising discovery that scout honeybees announce detailed information to their hivemates about food sources with a “waggle dance”. This information, conveyed via the dance’s vigor and angle, tells recruit bees what angle to fly relative to the sun, how far to go, and how good the food […]

Botany

David Attenborough Finds Living Fossil Tree Romantic, Not Devastating

May 12, 2005

England’s famous Kew Royal Botanical Gardens is getting a Wollemi Pine, and David Attenborough, naturalist and evolution popularist, is proud of it. This “living fossil” was thought extinct for 200 million years, but was found alive and well a few years ago in Australia (see 12/15/2000 entry). Grinning like a kid at Christmas, […]

Terrestrial Zoology

The Monarch Butterflies in the Flight Simulator, II

May 9, 2005

How much software can fit in a butterfly brain? Scientists are again amazed at the navigating ability of Monarch butterflies. In the 07/09/2002 entry, we reported about how Canadian researchers used a clever flight simulator to test Monarch butterfly navigation with reference to sun angle. Now, using an enhanced version of the earlier “butterfly flight […]

Terrestrial Zoology

How Did Salamanders Migrate from North America to Korea?

May 6, 2005

Salamanders are not particularly thought of as world travelers. A new species of lungless salamander of the family Plethodontidae has been found in Korea. Almost all previous members were found only in North America. To EurekAlert, reporting on a paper published in Nature,1 this is comparable to “discovering pandas in California or kangaroos in Argentina.” […]

Botany

Weeds Hold Promise for Miracle Drugs

May 3, 2005

We’d like weeds if we knew them better, says John Roach for National Geographic News, especially if we realized they may contain wonder drugs. “It’s often said that plants hidden in the tangle of the Amazonian rain forest may harbor an undiscovered cancer cure,” he writes; “John Richard Stepp thinks the same can be said […]

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