Origins

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Immune System Has a Code, Language and Memory

January 24, 2009

“Decoding the language of memory cells” is the title of an article in Science Daily. A researcher at the University of the School of Medicine is using the concepts of codes, language and memory to understand the way T-cells “remember” a pathogen to prevent later infections. “We are currently figuring out which signals are important […]

Darwin and Evolution

Exploring the Malleability of Evolutionary Explanation

January 23, 2009

Is evolutionary theory just a very malleable and ductile idea, able to adapt to changing observations, or should it be described as a strong theory, powerful in its explanatory breadth?

Education

For His Birthday, Darwin Loses His Tree

January 22, 2009

The “tree of life” is the central icon of Darwinism. Charles Darwin’s only illustration in the Origin of Species was a drawing of organisms descending from a common ancestor in a branching tree pattern. It has been reproduced, expanded, embellished and decorated into a primal symbol of what science believes about biology. Why, then, are […]

Biomimetics

Minerals Can Fool Astrobiologists

January 21, 2009

Look at this picture on National Geographic News. Looks alive, doesn’t it? It’s only a mineral. The article contains a gallery of five micrographs of minerals that form curvy crystals. They’re called biomorphs (a word simply meaning life-like shapes). “Until now scientists had thought rounded crystals, such as those found in seashells and […]

Origin of Life

Time for Mars Life Again

January 16, 2009

Methane detection around Mars is giving new life to claims there is life on Mars. Space.com #1 and Space.com #2 explain why NASA scientists are looking to see if the methane can be explained geologically or biologically. Some news sites, like The Sun, go over the top with claims life has been discovered. Only the […]

Bible and Theology

Darwinists Cannot Deny Disturbing Implications

January 15, 2009

A common attitude among scientists is that they are not responsible for what people do with their discoveries. Facts are facts, after all, and nuclear energy can be used to power a city as well as destroy it. Is this a truism or a half-truth? Are there cases where a scientist is responsible for what […]

Origin of Life

Darwin Blogs on Origin of Life

January 14, 2009

He may not blog himself, but Darwin has disciples who blog for him. There’s bound to be a lot of blogging this year with Darwin’s 200th birthday next month and the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species this November. Science began a blog called Origins with some entries from their Jan 8 issue. Two […]

Amazing Facts

Biology Now Includes Fluid Dynamic Construction

January 13, 2009

There’s an old legend that Tibetan monks built a wall by levitating heavy stones with sound by beating their drums and gongs. Something not quite so fantastic but still amazing is done by cells in the embryo. Scientists have filmed zebrafish embryos using beating cilia to build little stone structures that they use for balance. […]

Darwin and Evolution

Darwin in the Air

January 11, 2009

Darwin Day euphoria must be in the air. There have been several news stories with Darwin or Evolution in the title, but little to his credit in the substance of the article. Evolution inaction: The human immune system is, by any account, Science Daily, however not only called it a case of “Evolution in Action,” […]

Intelligent Design

Comparing Geological and Biological Patterns

December 26, 2008

Beehives have hexagons. So do lava flows. Is there any difference in how they form? Science Daily shows a picture of polygon-shaped tops of basalt columns at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. Similar formations are found in the Grand Canyon, at Devil’s Postpile in California, and in many places around the world. Researchers […]

Cosmology

Dream On, Astrobiology

December 22, 2008

An astrobiologist at Open University (UK) has classified habitable worlds into four types, even though only one of them is known to have life. Astrobiology Magazine reported the list by Jan Hendrik Bredeh?ft: earth-like, Mars-like, Venus-like and water-worlds. After considering all the facts, Bredeh?ft says our best bet to find extraterrestrial ecosystems is to hunt […]

Education

Which Evolution Should Be Taught?

December 19, 2008

Two articles in Scientific American’s cover feature on evolution in preparation for Darwin Day (12/15/2008, 12/16/2008) quoted a favorite line by Dobzhansky, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Assuming a teacher or textbook writer wants to illustrate how true this proverb is, which evolutionary proposal should be presented? Recent articles […]

Bible and Theology

Darwins New Terror: Islamic Creationism

December 13, 2008

The Darwinists must be feel like victims of a pincer strategy. After years of hassling with American creationists and the Intelligent Design movement in the west, here come the Muslims on the east. A couple of recent reports express the uneasiness evolutionists feel over the rise of anti-Darwin sentiments in Turkey and other parts of […]

Cell Biology

Nature Plagiarizes Behes Mousetrap

December 9, 2008

The prevention of genomic instability – and cancer – can be attributed to a “complex mousetrap” mechanism, said Robert M. Brosh, Jr (Laboratory of Molecular Gerontology, NIH) in Nature.1 This not-so-subtle reference to Michael Behe’s irreducibly complex system described in Darwin’s Black Box even has a mousetrap illustration with the following caption: The BLM protein […]

Amazing Facts

Thanks to Clam Design, Stronger Materials Are Coming

December 6, 2008

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs have produced a lightweight composite material 300 times stronger than its constituents. How? By taking inspiration from clams. The team, writing in Science,1 described nacre, the shiny mother-of-pearl found inside clam shells. Because of the way it sandwiches crystalline aragonite with layers of protein (07/26/2004), nacre resists […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="17"]