Biology

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Ichthyosaurs Suddenly Appeared in Triassic Oceans

April 20, 2002

“Ichthyosaurs were a group of Mesozoic marine reptiles that evolved fish-shaped body outlines,” begins Ryosuke Motani (UC Davis) in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences,1 in a paper on “Evolution of Fish-Shaped Reptiles… in Their Physical Environments and Constraints.” But while much is said about their environments and constraints, little is said to […]

Dumb Ideas

Evolution Rules

March 20, 2002

51; It would be convenient if all a scientist had to do to prove his theory was declare it to be a law of nature. Is that what scientists from UC Berkeley and Imperial College have done with evolution? “First ‘rule’ of evolution suggests that life is destined to become more complex,” announced a press […]

Amazing Facts

Bacterial Flagellum Can Tune Its Swim Speed with Network-Controlled Brakes

March 20, 2002

51; What’s new with flagella? These are the favorite toys of intelligent design supporters, because they are irreducibly complex molecular machines that evolutionists rarely attempt to explain by a Darwinian process. More fodder for their position comes from a paper in Cell1 that finds that bacteria can fine-tune their swimming velocity by means of a […]

Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs of the Month

February 20, 2002

The tools of paleontologists continue to turn up interesting things. Here are some of the latest dinosaur discoveries reported this month: Mighty mouth: An African theropod with massive, shark-like teeth was found in the African Sahara, reported National Geographic News and PhysOrg. It was named Eocarcharia dinops, or “fierce-eyed dawn shark.” Another similar individual, presumed […]

Biomimetics

Scientists Are Studying Your Garden for Ideas

February 20, 2002

51; Your garden plants are visited by a butterfly and various insects as you sip tea in a lawn chair. Did you have any idea that inventors are watching the same things with an eye to making money? Or that military officers are getting ideas from the garden to use against the enemy? Biomimetics – […]

Birds

Daffy Duck Found in Dino Park

January 20, 2002

A fossil duck from the Cretaceous has been discovered, indicating that the branch of birds including waterfowl already coexisted with the dinosaurs. A press release from NC State explains the significance of the paper published in Nature1 this week. Dr. Julia Clarke and colleagues say this means that “at least duck, chicken and ratite bird […]

Amazing Facts

How and Why Whiskers Whisk

January 20, 2002

Scientists at Weizmann Institute found some interesting things about whiskers, reports EurekAlert. While working with rats, they noticed that the whiskers are always in motion, twitching and sensing objects around them. They discovered that two kinds of neurons are involved in sending whisker signals to the brain. The “whisking” neurons are active all the time, […]

Mammals

Bats Exhibit Aerodynamic Superiority

January 20, 2002

They may look clumsy fluttering around in the twilight air, but “Flexible, highly articulated wings give bats more options for flight than birds: more lift, less drag, greater maneuverability.” Thus reads the caption to a picture of a bat in flight on a Brown University press release. Researchers at Brown U are studying the differences […]

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