VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Origin of Life

Astrobiologists Pool Their Ignorance at AbSciCon
May 1, 2008
A big conference on Astrobiology was held in Santa Clara, California last month.  It was the fifth AbSciCon (Astrobiology Science Conference), a bi-annual cross-disciplinary event.  This one pulled together 675 researchers from 28 countries across a variety of disciplines, all interested in life in space.  Naturally, evolution was an overarching theme.  From Edna DeVore’s account […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Complex Ankle Puts Bounce in Your Step
April 25, 2008
“The ankle is incredibly efficient at working so the amount of energy you burn with the ankle is much lower than what would be predicted with just isolated muscle studies.”  That’s what kinesiologist Daniel Ferris (U of Michigan) said in an article on Science Daily.  His team measured the efficiency of the muscles and tendons […]
CONTINUE READING
Genetics

Nature Topples ID Straw Man
April 19, 2008
It’s easier to knock down a straw man than a strong man.  Maybe that explains the human tendency to fantasize about victory over one’s enemies.  In scientific journals, however, one would expect to deal in facts and to realistically portray adversarial positions.  Even better would be to let the adversary respond.  Nature, however, in its […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

Is Inflation Theory in Trouble?
April 18, 2008
For more than a quarter of a century, “inflation” has been viewed as the savior of the Big Bang theory.  The Big Bang was in trouble in the late 1970s because of the flatness problem and the horizon problem: our universe appeared to be too homogeneous and isotropic to be an accident.  If a runaway […]
CONTINUE READING
Birds

Itemized Deductions
April 15, 2008
Here are some free deductions to take the edge off Income Tax Day…. as long as one deduces correctly. Israel is picking a national bird.  So what feathered friend will represent the Holy Land?  “The nine finalists include the hoopoe, the owl, the spur-winged plover, and the griffin vulture, but no doves.”  Source: Science, Random […]
CONTINUE READING
Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Expert Criticizes Uber-Darwinists More than Biblical Creationists
April 13, 2008
One of the field researchers most identifiable with dinosaurs is Dr. Robert Bakker, a colorful individual who’s had a long friendly rivalry with an equally iconic figure of the modern dinosaur hunter, Jack Horner (e.g., 11/24/2007).  Brian Switek interviewed Bakker on the Laelops Science Blog.  He introduced him as “one of the most famous paleontologists […]
CONTINUE READING
Intelligent Design

Big Science Fights Its Customers
April 9, 2008
Has “Big Science” lost contact with the public it serves?  Several recent reports show the scientific establishment (as represented by the leading journals) taking positions at polar opposites of the majority, and wagging the dog of the body politic. Chimeras:  Even though ethicists have called it “a monstrous attack on human rights,” to blend human […]
CONTINUE READING
Cell Biology

Watch for Falling Amino Acids
April 8, 2008
A long-standing problem of origin-of-life theories is how proteins became left-handed.  Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, come in right-handed and left-handed forms, yet life uses only the left-handed form.     The two isoforms are otherwise identical—yet one amino acid of the wrong hand in a protein spells doom for its function.  Wherever […]
CONTINUE READING
Intelligent Design

Expelled: Battle of the Reviews
April 7, 2008
Two weeks before Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed hits the theaters (April 18), reviewers are starting to weigh in.  One could hardly find a bigger contrast between two reviews that came out a day apart.     Dave Mosher, writing for Live Science, used every trick in the book to call this “a bad film in […]
CONTINUE READING
Darwin and Evolution

Darwin and Complexity: Another Genetic Solution?
April 2, 2008
It remains one of the biggest obstacles to belief in evolution that a random, unguided process could build an eye, a wing or any of thousands of complex structures.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Seeing Vision in a New Light
March 31, 2008
The eye is like a camera, right?  That picture is way too simplistic.  The eye-brain visual system does image processing and gleans information from photons in diverse and remarkable ways.  Here are some recent findings by scientists: Upward mobility:  A team of Harvard scientists found some retinal ganglion cells that sense upward motion.  Writing in […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Squid Beak: “A Truly Fascinating Design”
March 30, 2008
A new class of flexible yet tough materials may be in our future, thanks to a study of squid beaks.  Scientists at University of Santa Barbara, reported National Geographic News and Science Daily, were curious how the squid anchors its tough, hard beak in soft tissue.  Try anchoring a knife in Jell-o and you get […]
CONTINUE READING
Intelligent Design

Expelled Surges in the Blogosphere
March 29, 2008
There are probably few people who haven’t heard about Ben Stein’s upcoming documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.  The film documents persecution of intelligent-design advocates by Darwinists.  Unusual for a non-fiction documentary, it seems to be the talk of the blogs.  On March 24 it was #1 on BlogPulse, a Nielsen meter of the hottest topics […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Scientist Harnesses ATP Synthase
March 27, 2008
How would you like shorter waits at airports?  fast screening for disease?  the ability to detect biological warfare agents quickly?  That may be possible soon – thanks to an amazing man-and-nature cooperative technology reported by Science Daily.  A team led by Wayne Frasch at Arizona State is on the verge of an invention that can […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Enceladus: Hotter Chemical Plume Found
March 26, 2008
Initial results of Cassini’s March 12 flyby of Enceladus have been published.  You can watch a replay of today’s press briefing, read the blog, and read illustrated bulletins about the organic material, chemical signatures, hot spot locations, the stellar occultation (see also the Quicktime animation).  Another article shows the plume locations.  An astrobiologist (Chris McKay) […]
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly" cat_id="17"]