Origins – Page 234

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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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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?

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

Amazing Facts

Your Inner Locomotive Revealed

July 6, 2010

Visualize an old locomotive train roaring down the tracks. One of the characteristic images that surely comes to mind is the oscillating motion of the coupling rods on the wheels. The long rods that connected the wheels provided a way to convert heat energy from the steam into mechanical energy (example video on YouTube). It […]

Darwin and Evolution

Do New Fossils Soften the Cambrian Explosion?

July 5, 2010

Look at the picture of fossils in an article on PhysOrg. The discoverers claim these fossils from Gabon are 2.1 billion years old, and provide evidence that multicellular organisms began evolving long before the Cambrian explosion. “Until now, it has been assumed that organized multicellular life appeared around 0.6 billion years ago and that before […]

Darwin and Evolution

Tibetans Evolved Altitude Tolerance in 3,000 Years

July 3, 2010

Tibetans and other peoples who live at high altitudes possess a remarkable tolerance to the thin atmosphere. Now, scientists at UC Berkeley have identified some 30 genes related to oxygen regulation that differ in Tibetans from Han Chinese. Since those tribes are thought to have diverged 3,000 years ago, natural selection for these changes must […]

Birds

Humans Got Birdbrains by Convergent Evolution

July 2, 2010

Scientists are learning that birds have brains remarkably similar to those of mammals. This is contrary to a century of belief, PhysOrg said. How did such similarities evolve for groups of animals so widely separated? To explain it, evolutionists pulled out one of their common explanations: convergent evolution. “For more than a century,” […]

Amazing Facts

Farm Algae for Energy

June 29, 2010

June 29, 2010 — Why manufacture fuels when microbes can do it faster, better and cheaper? Researchers at the University of Cambridge are wiring electrodes to algae to produce “green energy” – solar-powered fuel that is carbon-neutral, “cheaper to produce, self-repairing, self-replicating, biodegradable and much more sustainable – real green energy.” The team […]

Astronomy

Using Aliens to Titillate the Public

June 28, 2010

Geologists cannot even figure out our own planet (next headline), but some of them claim to know a lot about other planets – their geological history, and even their prospects for life. Is it fair to tease the public with the L-word life when so much remains to be understood on the ground under our […]

Darwin and Evolution

Fish Feet: Can Evolution Add by Subtraction?

June 26, 2010

How did fish grow feet? One would think that feet require adding a lot of new parts: bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and additional supporting tissues. Each of those would require genetic instructions and changes to embryonic development. One evolutionist, however, feels that switching genes off paved the way to the invasion of land. The […]

Amazing Facts

The RNA Code: Pseudogenes Functional, Help Prevent Cancer

June 24, 2010

A surprising function has been discovered for a “pseudogene” – an apparently mutated copy of a regular gene that till recently was thought to be genetic junk. This pseudogene, reported in Nature today,1 not only has a function unrelated to the production of proteins, but a function that could save your life. It is part […]

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