Ready, Aim, Flower
May 26, 2012
How does a plant know the time to flower? A new study describes a process involving genes, sunlight sensors, switches, clocks, feedback loops and messages.
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New Chirality Solution Proposed
May 9, 2012
It's long been a mystery why cells use one hand of two-handed molecules, like left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars. A new proposal solves the mystery, explaining how this phenomenon called homochirality arises naturally. Wait a minute...
Stem Cells Getting Healthier
May 6, 2012
Over the past decade, stem cells have been a hot news item. Here are some late breaking news stories about them.
Animals Have Biological GPS
April 30, 2012
Global Positioning System (GPS): that's a function. Maintaining a suite of satellites is one method for achieving the function. But there are other ways to figure out where in the world you are, and two very different animals show the way – naturally – using Earth's global magnetic field.
How the Tiger Got Its Stripes: Dunno
April 28, 2012
A leading hypothesis for morphogenesis (pattern formation, such as tiger stripes) has been shown to be oversimplified. Whatever gave a tiger its stripes is more complicated than developmental biologists thought.
From Wonders of Nature to Wonders of Technology
April 22, 2012
Living things have solved physics problems like design engineers. Inventors are just now catching on to their tricks in ways that could improve our technology, weaning us off our crude, polluting past and ushering in advanced technology that is not only greener but more effective. The latest stars are two insects and a bacterium.
Is This Plant Really 30,000 Years Old?
February 20, 2012
A plant said to be 30,000 years old has been brought to life in Russia. A team resurrected a fruit from a rodent burrow in Siberian permafrost, getting it to grow into a whole plant that produces viable seeds. This is now the oldest age claim, by an order of magnitude, for plant material made to live again. Other scientists are startled that plant material could remain viable for so long, since cells have to repair their DNA continually. Other botany news bring different problems to evolutionary theory.
Small Animals Show Even More Design
February 17, 2012
Your smart phone is a triumph of miniaturization. The first computers were room-filling monstrosities; now, you can hold more computing power than a Univac in the palm of your hand. In the living world, we should't despise small creatures. They can pack a lot of technology into a small space. Here are some record-setting examples of living miniatures reported recently.
Innovation as a Dodge
February 7, 2012
This is not a truck commercial. It’s not about a Dodge as an innovation, but innovation as a dodge. It’s about how a word, innovation, is used as a euphemism in evolution articles. The word seems to mean, “we have no clue how this evolved, but it must have for evolution to be true.” It’s a handy rhetorical trick, because without it, a reader might be tempted to think the evidence supports creation. Some recent articles show how the trick is employed.
Rethinking Parasitism
February 4, 2012
Parasitism is bad. Parasitism is evil. Parasites wage war against innocent hosts. This is our mindset. What if parasites can do good? This change of heart seems to be happening for one case, the case of transposable genetic elements. If they are only doing harm to the host, why did some biologists find that “positive selection” seems to be maintaining them? That makes it sound like the cells need them.
Living Surprises, Living Hopes
January 21, 2012
Here are ten recent discoveries about plants and animals that are surprising and inspiring. Some of them may lead to technologies that can improve our own lives.
Oozing Life Up Against All Odds
January 20, 2012
The origin of life clearly requires a major leap in complexity, but not just any complexity. A conglomerate rock is complex, but not alive. Life has functional complexity – the ability to selectively take in materials to grow, move and reproduce. Life also requires growth, but not just any growth. Fire grows and reproduces, but is not alive, whereas a living cell grows and reproduces according to internal programmed instructions. Evolutionists think the origin of life by natural causes is a tractable problem that will eventually be solved. Let’s see a couple of examples of how their work is coming along.
Science Grab Bag
January 13, 2012
Here's a random assortment of things floating around in the science news media – some fascinating, some informative, some disgusting. We’ll let the readers decide which is which. Since it’s Friday the 13th, a day to enjoy like any other day, we’ll give you a baker’s dozen to sample.
Nature Does It Right
January 4, 2012
Scientists and engineers continue to find well-designed features in living things that are worth imitating.
Cells Optimize Their Tasks
December 28, 2011
The key to design in manufacturing is optimization – hitting the “sweet spot” between competing interests. It’s not always possible to have all the elements of a product be ideal. A laptop computer, for instance, can’t have an extra-large monitor and simultaneously have long battery life and compact design. A muscle car cannot be expected to have the best gas mileage. In the heyday of “faster, better, cheaper” spacecraft, engineers often joked, “pick any two.” In the same way, living cells have to optimize their operations. A couple of recent papers explore how they find that sweet spot.