Terrestrial Zoology – Page 39

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Is This What Darwin Had in Mind?

April 10, 2011

Evolution is a word loosely used in science these days. Reporters and scientists talk about “the evolution of” this or that sometimes carelessly, without regard to how the explanation fits old Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. Has the word evolution become a kind of catch-all hypothesis, for which rigor is no longer necessary? Survival of the discreetist: […]

Birds

Does Observing Flight Explain Its Evolution?

April 6, 2011

In various research labs, evolutionists are studying the origin of flight. Recent articles, though, only show them observing animals or fossils that already fly or flew. Does this provide any insight into how flight might have originated by a purposeless material process? Birds: With a quote from Charles Darwin decorating the heading, PhysOrg announced a […]

Fossils

Science Discovers the Unexpected and the Obvious

March 30, 2011

Young’s Law jokes, “All great discoveries are made by mistake.” Here are some recent examples. Arch-istan: Think the world’s natural features are all well known? “Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have stumbled upon a geological colossus in a remote corner of Afghanistan: a natural stone arch spanning more than 200 feet across its base,” […]

Biomimetics

Plagiarizing Nature

March 28, 2011

Copying someone else’s invention is a crime, but researchers in biomimetics are doing it with impunity and getting away with it. Leaf power: “Why come up with new ways to generate clean energy, when we can copy what plants have been doing for millennia?” That’s what led Daniel Nocera and colleagues at MIT to develop […]

Dinosaurs

More Soft Tissue Found in Old Fossils

March 23, 2011

A reptile skin fossilized in rock said to be 50 million years old has been found. According to Science Daily, scientists at the University of Manchester reported the discovery of amide molecules in “fossilized soft tissue of a beautifully-preserved reptile.” The original paper, accessible to the public, was published in the Proceedings of the Royal […]

Biomimetics

Follow the Insects

March 15, 2011

Science has good reason to study insects – not just because they are the most numerous and diverse animals on the planet. They know some tricks we would do well to emulate. Robot designers are taking the lead on following insects. Print a fly: New printers are allowing inventors to print the paper-thin wings they […]

Darwin and Evolution

Bizarre Fossils Raise Questions

February 8, 2011

For decades, students have been taught that the fossil record shows a long, slow, gradual progression of increasing complexity over millions of years. Scientific data are usually not so simple. Surprising youth in old fossil: When you see the word unexpected in a headline, expect the unexpected. “Unexpected exoskeleton remnants found in Paleozoic fossils,” reported […]

Biomimetics

Extreme Biomimetics

February 7, 2011

Imitating spider silk or gecko feet is one thing, but some researchers are going to extremes to try to do what living organisms do. DNA railcar: Researchers at University of Oxford have constructed a “programable [sic] molecular transport system” that travels like a railcar on DNA molecules, reported PhysOrg. And that’s not all: they would […]

Darwin and Evolution

Fossils by Faith

February 4, 2011

Fossils are real artifacts you can hold in your hand. The stories behind them are not. How does science connect the one with the other? Sometimes, it requires faith in incredible stories. Stay, sis: Darwin portrayed a world in flux, with natural selection continually sifting and amplifying minute changes over time. Why, then did Science […]

Darwin and Evolution

Insect Wings Are Rainbows of Color

January 9, 2011

Scientists in Sweden have found that a feature of transparent insect wings – their shimmering colors – may have a purpose. They are not just accidental patterns like the rainbow colors of oil on water, but are stable structures genetically determined for insect recognition and mating. They call them “wing interference patterns” (WIP) but their […]

Biomimetics

Design Science Scores

December 15, 2010

A team of scientists at Leeds University (UK) led by well-known design scientist Andy McIntosh has won an award for innovative design inspired by nature. “The team’s work has received the outstanding contribution to innovation and technology title at the Times Higher Education awards in London,” reported the BBC News. By studying and […]

Darwin and Evolution

Strange Beasts Walked the Earth

December 13, 2010

Narnia is a fantasy world of talking beasts and chimeric monsters, as seen in the release of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third movie in the series, great for an adventurous escape to a different world (see Narnia.com). While fauns and minotaurs may be mythical, some of the extinct beasts found as fossils in […]

Early Man

News on the Mind

December 6, 2010

Here are a dozen recent stories dealing with brains, the mind, perception, motivation and other aspects of psychology and neuroscience. Nature and nurture: PhysOrg claims that scientists at SMU have resolved the nature vs nurture debate with a hybrid approach. Whether it satisfies critics remains to be seen. Perhaps they are still thinking inside the […]

Terrestrial Zoology

Speleology Without Evolution

December 1, 2010

“Steven Taylor, a macro-invertebrate biologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois, has spent more than two decades plumbing the mysteries of cave life,” an article said on PhysOrg, based on a press release from the University of Illinois. The article describes his adventures in tight, dark spots in numerous caves, […]

Birds

Struggling to Make Evolutionary Sense

November 23, 2010

Evolutionists love to quote Dobzhansky, who said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” But when they go about explaining biological observations, the sense and light seem hard to come by. Biodiversity: The subject of the emergence of diverse forms of living things seems tailor made for a Darwinian explanation. Why, […]

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