Origin of Life – Page 31

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Dust Became Knowledge

October 11, 2007

The Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week award goes to an Associated Press article reporting on a finding from the Spitzer Space Telescope. It began in a very matter-of-fact manner, claiming that the one of the biggest questions of philosophy is being answered by dust. Astronomers have taken a baby step in trying to […]

Origin of Life

Mars Was and Is Dry

September 21, 2007

The cover story of Science this week has bad news for those hoping for Martian lakefront property. A series of articles by planetary scientists who studied images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter casts strong doubt on the presence of water on Mars, even in the planet’s early days. The overview article by Richard Kerr in […]

Dumb Ideas

Dust to Dust, or Dust to Life?

September 17, 2007

National Geographic gave prominent press to last month’s theory of living dust (see 08/10/2007, bullet 1). Criticisms were mild; scientists were quoted who thought this claim raises interesting questions about the definition of life. Tsytovich’s ideas were described by Mihaly Horanyi (U of Colorado) as “amazing.” He said, “This is a very original, very intelligent […]

Origin of Life

Solar System News

August 28, 2007

A flurry of discoveries about the Sun’s family has some scientists smiling and others furrowing their brows. Astrobiologists, as usual, are wielding their divining rods, looking for water. Some of these reports surfaced at the European Planetary Science Congress last week at Potsdam, Germany; see agenda and press releases at Europlanet. Basalt assault: How did […]

Dumb Ideas

SETI Camp Promotes Make Believe

August 17, 2007

“Every kid loves to play make believe,” wrote Lisa Grossman for Space.com’s “SETI Thursday” feature. How did Lisa spend her summer? Playing make believe with 16 undergraduates at a NSF- and NASA-funded SETI camp. “For many of us, the experience was nothing short of fantasy fulfillment,” she cheerfully said in her report entitled, “How I […]

Dumb Ideas

Weird-Science Origin-of-Life Theories

August 10, 2007

Two news articles on the origin of life seem bizarre at best. One even used the word “bizarrely” in its own self-evaluation. Living dust: Zap the dust in your living room and it may come alive. Is that the gist of this story in PhysOrg? A team of international scientists thinks that cosmic dust in […]

Marine Biology

Deep Sea Vents Tantalize Evolutionists

August 1, 2007

A team of Chinese and American scientists pulled up fragments of deep-sea vents and analyzed their contents, reported Science Daily. They said the creatures inhabiting these vents are the “most primitive life forms on Earth,” and so thought that the fragments might provide clues to the origin of life. Timothy Kusky of Saint Louis University […]

Origin of Life

Origin of Life: Speculation vs. Evidence

July 27, 2007

The European Astrobiology Magazine reviewed a book1 that tries to give “detailed scrutiny” the problem of “the transition from small, simple molecules to large, complex cells.” The initial reaction by reviewer Toby Murcott points out glaring problems in origin of life research: uncertainty, lack of consensus, and lack of evidence: What hits you immediately about […]

Intelligent Design

Origin of Life Made Simple: Stochastic Innovation Answers I.D.

June 8, 2007

A press release from UC San Francisco teases, Before life emerged on earth, either a primitive kind of metabolism or an RNA-like duplicating machinery must have set the stage – so experts believe. But what preceded these pre-life steps? A pair of UCSF scientists has developed a model explaining how simple chemical and […]

Origin of Life

OOL Study Substitutes Computer for Chemistry

May 15, 2007

Upon reading a recent origin-of-life paper in PNAS,1 you might think the authors ran experiments with real chemicals and real deep-sea rocks. A more careful look, however, reveals that their model only worked in cyberspace. This raises interesting questions about the ability of simulations to substitute for empirical evidence. Their claims were dramatic […]

Origin of Life

Can the Miller Experiment Be Revived?

April 4, 2007

Jeffrey Bada at the Scripps Institute is finding more interesting stuff in Stanley Miller’s spark-discharge tubes – with a little tweaking of ingredients. Scientific American acknowledges that the famous experiment fell into disrepute when scientists used a more realistic atmosphere: “It seemed to refute a long-cherished icon of evolution—and creationists quickly seized on it as […]

Origin of Life

Is Hardy Life Evidence of an Evolutionary Origin?

March 29, 2007

Salt-tolerate species of unicellular organisms are found in all three kingdoms of life, says an article on Space.com. “Astrobiologists, those cross disciplinary scientists dedicated to investigating the broad question of life in the universe,” writes Lisa Chu-Theilbar of the SETI Institute, “often study extremophiles, organisms that live at the edges of what life is known […]

Dumb Ideas

Can the Interior Design Itself?

March 26, 2007

Calling all interior designers: has Darwinism rendered you superfluous? J. Scott Turner thinks so. He wrote a book called The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself (Harvard, 2007). It was reviewed by Claus Wedekind in last week’s Nature with the title, “The interior designer.” This does not imply that interiors need an exterior […]

Origin of Life

Extrasolar Gas Giants Turn Up Dry

February 22, 2007

A “dramatic step” led to a “big surprise”, said a press release from Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was able to capture the first spectral information from two planets orbiting other stars. HD 209458b and HD 189733b are so-called “hot Jupiters” – similar in size to our gas giants, they orbit much closer […]

Origin of Life

OOL on the Rocks

February 15, 2007

Robert Shapiro demolishes the RNA World just in time for Leslie Orgel to demolish Shapiro's own myth. Ashes, ashes; they all fall down.

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