VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Dumb Ideas

Tickle Me Darwin
June 8, 2009
Observation: orangutans seem to laugh when tickled.  Conclusion: humans evolved laughter from our ape past.  This is the story being promoted by the science news outlets.  “At least 10 million years ago, our ancestors may have been laughing it up over the latest stone-age prank or bout of tickling,” announced Live Science.     New […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Discovering Health and Technology in the Human Body
June 7, 2009
Why invent technology from scratch, when the body contains substances that point the way to high tech, and can heal almost like magic?  Several articles show that harnessing the body’s own resources is the wave of the future.     Umbilical cords were usually tossed into the maternity ward biowaste can, but now they are […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Bees’ Knees Bridle the Breeze
June 5, 2009
Bees stabilize their flight in windy conditions by extending their hind legs.  Even though this costs 30% more energy and produces more drag, it provides stabilization against turbulence by increasing their moment of inertia (i.e., their resistance to being flipped over).     A team of scientists videotaped the insects flying when blasted by powerful […]
CONTINUE READING
Mammals

“Social Brain Hypothesis” Discredited
June 4, 2009
According to evolutionary theory, the extra processing required for living in social groups should make brains bigger.  Not so, found a couple of scientists who looked into the question.  There’s no general correlation.     According to Live Science, John Finarelli (University of Michigan) and John Flynn (American Museum of Natural History in New York) […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Protein Springs Keep Crabs Happy
June 1, 2009
Crabs and crayfish contain “exquisite” protein springs around their mouth parts that enhance motion, signaling, and sensing of their environment, Science Daily reported, about work done at the University of Cambridge.     The protein involved, called resilin, is almost perfectly elastic.  “The exquisite rubbery properties of resilin are known to be put to use […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Another Crow Species Impresses Scientists with Tool-Making Skills
May 26, 2009
Who would have thought that crows rival chimpanzees in intelligence?  Members of the corvid group, which includes crows and ravens, are amazing researchers with their ability to make tools.     Previous studies with New Caledonian crows (08/09/2002, 10/07/2007, 02/23/2007) impressed researchers with the birds’ abilities to fashion simple tools out of available materials to […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Cool Bird Tricks
May 19, 2009
Evidence continues to mount that a lot of capability is packed into a little bird’s brain.  We should use the phrase bird-brain to honor smart animals. I C U:  Mockingbirds can recognize individual humans.  Disturb a mockingbird nest, and the parents will single you out from a crowd and go into attack mode, researchers at […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Ho-Hum, Another Human Missing Link
May 19, 2009
Shoppers typically are wary of over-hyped ads, knowing that any claim sounding too good to be true probably is.  What would they think about media reports claiming a new fossil monkey is the “8th wonder of the world”?     The scientific paper in PLoS ONE1 had hardly been published before the press went ape, […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Cuttlefish Inspire Reflective Screens
May 14, 2009
“Cuttlefish are masters of disguise, able to change their skin color in less than a second to hide from predators or draw in prey for the kill,” begins an article on MSNBC News.  A team at MIT, fascinated with the physics of this capability, tried to imitate it.  They found they could electrically control the […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

Darwinizing Morality
May 13, 2009
Darwinists continue to try to lay claim to morality (cf. 01/20/2008, 05/02/2008, 03/12/2009)  If Darwinism is to succeed as a comprehensive world view, it must explain this innate sense we all have that certain actions (e.g., torturing babies, slavery, genocide) are morally wrong.  Without a God telling man “Thou shalt not”, how can all humans […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Survival of the Slowest
May 11, 2009
Without stopping to think, the BBC News claimed that evolution is slowing snails down.  “Natural selection is favouring snails with reduced metabolic rates, researchers in Chile have discovered.”  Why would evolution do such a thing?  Isn’t the proverbial slowest of beasts already at risk of predators?  Not necessarily.  Look on the positive side: “Snails with […]
CONTINUE READING
Dinosaurs

Missing Links Found: Walking Seal, Teen Tyrannosaur
April 23, 2009
Science news media are abuzz with reports that two missing links have been found.  One is a fossil seal (pinniped) with four legs, the other a smaller presumed ancestor of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. Seal:  National Geographic News calls it a seal with arms, and features artwork of an otter-like animal doing a kind of […]
CONTINUE READING
Birds

Is Darwinism Useful Explaining Cognition?
April 15, 2009
One would think the evolution of mind involves a straightforward account of improving cognition as one progresses up the evolutionary tree.  It’s not so simple, said two researchers in a Nature essay:1  Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is broadly accepted among biologists, but its implications for the study of cognition are far from […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Better Solar Cells with Diatoms
April 14, 2009
Let’s start with the operative quote before the subject matter: “Nature is the engineer, not high tech tools.  This is providing a more efficient, less costly way to produce some of the most advanced materials in the world.”  OK, now the subject: how to build better solar cells, by imitating diatoms.  See the story on […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Animal Flight Control: Where’s the Evolution?
April 12, 2009
A couple of articles in Science last week discussed the marvels of flight control in birds.  “Being earthbound save for the ability to fly airplanes and helicopters, humans stand in awe of animals that power their own movement through the air by flapping their wings, and of the spectacular maneuvers that some of these animals […]
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date