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Education

Best Face-on-Mars Photo Looks Dead
August 3, 2010
Conspiracy theorists will probably have little to say now that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken the clearest photo yet of the alleged “Face on Mars” in Cydonia.  For the before and after photos, see PhysOrg.  The new photo is clearly an eroded, rocky mesa – that’s all, folks. Use this as a teachable moment.  […]
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Amazing Facts

Nature’s Designs Excite Inventors
August 1, 2010
The imitation of nature – biomimetics – is one of the hottest areas in science these days.  Recent reports tell about research teams racing to move natural designs to market, and there’s no end in sight. Pack it green:  Got parcels?  Don’t use styrofoam peanuts and bubble wraps; that’s so 2009.  Why manufacture plastic and […]
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Amazing Facts

Electricity Forms Your Heart
July 31, 2010
Did you know your heart is an electrical appliance?  That’s right.  Currents of electrical ions are vital to its function as a contractile organ.  Now, researchers at the University of California have found another thing electricity does for your heart: it guides the developing heart into the proper shape.  This is a key study showing […]
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Birds

Getting Animals from Here to There
July 30, 2010
The world is a big place, and most animals are small.  Yet many animals are found far from where their presumed ancestors lived.  Most birds, naturally, can fly long distances, and some sea creatures can cross the oceans with the help of currents.  That cannot explain all the cases, however.  Here are some attempts by […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Evolution of Segmentation Leads to Playing God
July 28, 2010
Most animals come in segments – body plans that are divided into more-or-less similar parts.  Arthropods, worms and vertebrates are examples (including humans, with their vertebral segments and rough division into head, thorax and abdomen).  Where did the idea of segmentation come from?  Some French evolutionists think it just appeared by chance and changed the […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Recapitulation Theory Gets Recap
July 26, 2010
The long-discounted “recapitulation theory” of Ernst Haeckel, the idea that the development of an embryo replays its evolutionary history, pops up every once in awhile in evolutionary explanations.  Evolutionary biologists (most notably the late Stephen Jay Gould) have long since disparaged the idea that evolutionary history would be preserved in embryos.  In addition, photos of […]
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Origin of Life

Wishing ET Upon a Star
July 19, 2010
What are the odds of finding extraterrestrials?  That subject has been discussed ad infinitum, but David Shiga at New Scientist thinks the odds just went up.  “Solitary suns like ours are not as rare as we once thought, boosting the likelihood that there are other life-friendly solar systems in the universe.”  It should be noted […]
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Bible and Theology

Spinning Webs of Belief: Accounting for George Price
July 16, 2010
It’s instructive to take a story and compare how evolutionists and creationists report it.  A recent example can be found in the story of George Price: an ex-atheist scientist who, as a creationist, contributed original ideas to evolutionary theory.  How did reviewers from both sides of the origins aisle characterize his creationist beliefs?     […]
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Cell Biology

Darwinists Get Sexy
July 13, 2010
The origin of sex titillates many evolutionary biologists.  On the one hand, animals and plants have such interesting ways of getting together.  But on the other hand, sex seems too costly to have originated by natural selection.  Some recent articles provide new evolutionary speculations on the origin of sex – but simultaneously undermine previous speculations. […]
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Cell Biology

Bacteria Too Complex To Be Primitive Eukaryote Ancestors
July 12, 2010
In the search for the most primitive life forms on earth, bacteria would certainly make the list.  They are tiny, one-celled, and have small genomes.  Why, then, did Patrick Forterre and Simonetta Gribaldo of the Pasteur Institute say in PNAS,1 “we should definitely stop thinking of bacteria in terms of simple ‘lower’ organisms”?  For the […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Darwin Caught Out of Bounds
July 11, 2010
What business does Darwin have in quantum mechanics or engineering?  Wasn’t his a theory on the origin of species – that is, plants, animals and living things?  Some scientists seem intent on extrapolating his views to all of reality, including areas commonly thought to be in the domain of intelligent design.  Let’s get physical:  An […]
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Solar System

Are Saturn’s Rings Evolving?
July 10, 2010
Can ring particles grow into moons? And is that how planets grew from rings around stars?
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Amazing Facts

Proteins Fold Who Knows How
July 9, 2010
One of the biggest mysteries remaining in cell biology is how proteins fold.  Proteins start out as chains of amino acids (polypeptides) as they exit the ribosome.  Most of them spontaneously fold into their “native” three-dimensional structures, where they will go to work as enzymes, structural materials or other key players in cell life.  About […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Fantasy Island:  Evolutionary Weirdness Does Not Favor Islands
July 8, 2010
We need “Reality Island,” an evolutionary biologist claims.  Dr. Shai Meiri of Tel Aviv University accuses fellow evolutionists of engaging in “magical thinking” about island habitats: believing that islands are where large animals grow small, small animals grow large, and weird species proliferate.  It’s an illusion, he said in an article on Science Daily.   […]
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Biomimetics

Productive Science Imitates Nature
July 7, 2010
Examples continue to accumulate that some of the most interesting and fruitful science projects involve copying design principles found in nature.  This “biomimetics” approach not only pleases the consumers who can look forward to greener, cheaper, better products, but leads to deeper understandings of nature’s workings. Gecko adhesives:  PhysOrg published a story on the ongoing […]
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