Human Genome “Infinitely More Complex” Than Expected
April 5, 2010
Ten years after the Human Genome Project was completed, now we know: biology is “orders of magnitude” more complicated than scientists expected.
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Man Will Never Fly (to the Stars)
March 13, 2010
It’s risky to say “never” in science. The Man Will Never Fly Society had a short life. However, an article on Space.com makes it seem a safe bet that, Star Trek notwithstanding, warp-speed flights to the stars are out of the question for humans. “Warp speed will kill you,” the article announced; why? Because interstellar […]
Whos In Control: Your Brain or You?
March 12, 2010
Do you have a self that controls your brain, or is thought a secretion of the brain, as Darwin claimed? Do you use your brain, or does your brain operate you? Who is in charge? These are deep philosophical questions with a long history, that some people prefer to avoid, as in the common joke: […]
The Brain You Use, and How It Uses You
February 21, 2010
Neuroscientists continue to find out amazing things about the human brain. In some ways we are responsible to use our brains, but in other ways the brain does things to us. If nobody has figured out where the dividing line is for thousands of years, it’s unlikely we will today; but the following findings can […]
Is Your Bod Flawed by God?
February 14, 2010
Are your body’s imperfections reasons for you to reject intelligent design and embrace evolution? Professor John Avise (UC Irvine) thinks so. His new book Inside the Human Genome was given good press by PhysOrg: “Distinguished Professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, Avise also makes the case that overwhelming scientific evidence of genomic […]
Barefoot Is Better
January 27, 2010
Who do we wear shoes? It seems obvious; we expect that they help us avoid injuries and provide comfort. Maybe we should think of the injuries we are getting by wearing them. The image of the barefoot person is usually of someone poor, deprived, lower-class, hick, unclean, redneck or something else unattractive. Shoes […]
To Advance Technology, Make Like Nature
January 12, 2010
Scientists and engineers continue to find the most elegant solutions to practical problems by looking at plants and animals. Here are a few of the recent examples. Wet computing: Cells and brains do a superior job of complex processing, so why are our current computers singing how dry I am? Not for much longer. Science […]
It Takes More than Eyes to See
January 6, 2010
We think of eyes as objects that see, but vision requires a whole system of parts. One of the most important is the brain. Without your thalamus, vision would be a hopeless jumble of jerky signals, reported scientists from the National Eye Institute. Writing in PNAS,1 Ostendorf, Liebermann and Ploner found that the […]
In Brains, Size Is Not All that Matters
December 22, 2009
Two recent science articles indicate that scientists should be careful before inferring intelligence from brain size (picture). PhysOrg reported on work to uncover the genetic basis of microcephaly – reduced brain size in humans. “The cerebral cortex in particular has undergone a dramatic increase in surface area during the course of primate evolution,” the article […]
Debunker Busters
December 17, 2009
Often in science reports, new findings debunk previously held beliefs. But then, a thoughtful reader might ask, didn’t the previously held belief debunk a belief prior to that? Sometimes it gets difficult to believe the current belief has any credibility, when the debunkers turn on each other. A dilemma about dilemmas: Psychologists and philosophers have […]
Whats Natural for Humans?
December 1, 2009
Should humans do what comes naturally? What comes naturally? And what do we mean by natural? Nicholas Wade in the New York Times said, “We May Be Born With an Urge to Help.” He began with the same question: “What is the essence of human nature?” Then he discussed evidence that infants have […]
Seeing Sound and Hearing Light
November 28, 2009
Synesthesia, the syndrome in which people’s senses become confused, may not be so off the wall. Research at the University of British Columbia “flips the traditional view of how we perceive the world on its head.” Experiments show that our brains perceive the world by synthesizing multiple inputs. The latest evidence of this is that […]
In Brains, Its Quality, Not Quantity, that Counts
November 17, 2009
Most anthropologists are obsessed with brain size. How many cc’s (cubic centimeters) of brain could fit in the skull of this or that hominid? PhysOrg reminds us that “Bigger not necessarily better, when it comes to brains.” Here’s a shocker from scientists at Queen Mary University: “Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger […]
What Is Man?
November 5, 2009
Science often makes pronouncements about the human species. We should be mindful of the worldview behind them. Live Science published an article with the confident-sounding title, “Human Evolution: Where We Came From,” accompanied by the iconic sketch of Ardi (see 10/02/2009) and an obligatory reference to Darwin. Even though reporter Charles Q. Choi, […]
Human Evolution Celebration Exposed
September 24, 2009
The evolutionary story of human origins is often told like a cultural myth that is intuitively obvious. Humans emerged in Africa after their ancestors came down from the trees and walked upright. They began to hunt with stone tools and used fire. They migrated north out of Africa and populated Europe, overtaking the Neanderthals who […]