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Amazing Facts

All Kingdoms of Life Have Ideas We Need
November 4, 2010
Inventors aren’t partial.  They are willing to find inspiration in plants, animals, and microbes.  Here are three examples showing that all kingdoms of life have great engineering ideas that researchers involved in biomimetics are seeking to understand. Plants:  We don’t fight walled cities with catapults any more, but storing elastic energy can still be useful.  […]
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Amazing Facts

Windows into the Mind
November 3, 2010
What would it be like to see things for the first time?  You can watch the reaction on Live Science #1 and Live Science #2.  Blind patients were implanted with a microchip that allowed them, for the first time, to roughly sense the visual input of objects in front of them.  Amazing as it was, […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Cambrian Explosion Solved
October 31, 2010
Geologists have come out swinging against the idea the Cambrian Explosion damages Darwinism.  In a lengthy new paper in the Geological Society of America Bulletin,1 they believe they pitch three strikes against creationists and intelligent-design supporters who claim that the sudden appearance of all the animal body plans at the base of the Cambrian falsifies […]
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Biomimetics

Purpose-Driven Science Ignores Darwin
October 30, 2010
While some Darwinists feel that the Intelligent Design (ID) movement is a major threat to science, many scientists unconnected to ID are acting as if it provides for them a more fruitful approach to research.  Several recent examples illustrated what might be called a silent “de facto” intelligent design movement. Purposeful proteins:  PhysOrg reported work […]
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Amazing Facts

Amazing Insects Defy Evolution
October 26, 2010
Two recent articles about insects call for the ring buoy on the H.M.S. Darwin.  The first is about fossil amber from India, reported by the BBC News.  “We have complete, three-dimensionally preserved specimens that are 52 million years old,” one of the discoverers announced with astonishment, “and you can handle them almost like living ones.”  […]
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Biomimetics

Biomimetics: Does It Flatter Darwin?
October 24, 2010
The imitation of natural design (biomimetics) is a cutting-edge approach to engineering these days.  Many times, the reports on attempts to mimic the amazing properties of cells, plants, and animals have no time to discuss evolution (e.g., 09/24/2010).  Once in awhile, though, scientists or reporters go out of their way to tell their readers that […]
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Bible and Theology

Mind Matters
October 22, 2010
The conundrum of how reasoning could have emerged by an undirected evolutionary process persists.  Atheists and materialists are convinced that natural selection is up to the task, while theists strongly disagree and use human rationality as evidence for creation by an intelligent source (usually God).  Perhaps a few recent findings can illuminate on the options. […]
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Amazing Facts

Biomimetics Frontier: The Wild Wet
October 18, 2010
Some animals have figured out how to turn wetness into an ally instead of a nuisance, and some research teams are hard on their heels trying to learn how to settle that frontier. Wet feet:  Geckos cling to walls and ceilings even when their feet are wet.  How do they do it?  It would be […]
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Amazing Facts

Migrating Whales Fertilize the Sea
October 15, 2010
Two recent discoveries about whales show them to be not only benign but beneficial.  PhysOrg reported on work at the University of Vermont that indicates whale waste carries nitrogen nutrients to the depths of the ocean, fertilizing the food chain and increasing the production of ocean fisheries.     In another article on PhysOrg, a […]
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Birds

Super Penguin: Seeing Is Believing, But Is It Understanding?
October 1, 2010
Another fossil of a giant penguin in Peru has been found (cf. 06/26/2007).  It apparently had reddish-brown underwings and stood as tall as a man.  It must have been a strong swimmer.  Nicknamed “water king,” the mammoth penguin was placed at the 36 million mark on the evolutionary timeline.  One remarkable feature of this fossil, […]
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Genetics

Fruit Flies Not Evolving
September 30, 2010
A long-running experiment trying to get fruit flies to evolve has failed.  A research team forced selection on the flies to explore the limits of natural selection.  Only minor changes were detected after 600 generations.  The research team was disappointed and surprised; there was even less evolution in these sexual organisms than in similar experiments […]
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Darwin and Evolution

The Evolution of Speech, and v.v.
September 23, 2010
The brain just got more complex – that is, the part that helps us speak.  “Complex brain landscape controls speech,” reported PhysOrg, discussing findings by German researchers that show Broca’s region, implicated in speech disorders when damaged, appears to be “a much more complexly structured centre of language than was previously believed.”  Not just a […]
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Birds

Evolutionists Promise Without Delivering
September 22, 2010
Some science news reports lead the reader to think that some major new understanding into evolution is under the headline, but they often fail to deliver.  Darwinian abomination:  Science Daily promised, “Toward Resolving Darwin’s ‘Abominable Mystery’: Patterns of Flower Biodiversity Point to the Importance of Having ‘Room to Grow’.”  The article was accompanied by a […]
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Amazing Facts

Archer Fish See Like People
September 13, 2010
An archer fish can spit out a man’s cigarette.  That’s actually a humorous scene at the end of a video clip on The Scientist that talks about the amazing eyes of this underwater sharpshooter.  New research shows that these freshwater fish, known for their ability to spit bugs off bushes, have a mammal-like ability to […]
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Amazing Facts

World’s Top Chemists Can’t Match a Plant
September 12, 2010
There’s a race on: a race to get cheap energy from the sun.  “The design and improvement of solar cells is one of the most vibrant areas of science,” said the BBC News, “in part because sunlight is far and away the planet’s most abundant renewable energy source.”  Two recent articles show that top labs […]
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