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Fossils

Worms Didn’t Evolve for 520 Million Years
August 3, 2004
J.Y. Chen and team in China have found another Cambrian fossil that exhibits zero evolution for nearly the entire history of life.  The abstract from the Royal Society Proceedings: Biological Sciences1 reports the discovery of three kinds of sipunculan worm near the base of the Cambrian, which all “have striking similarities to modern sipunculans.”  These […]
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Fossils

Cambrian Explosion Explained, or Explained Away?
July 29, 2004
James Valentine, an authority on early fossils, has just published a new 600-page book on the Cambrian explosion with the Darwinesque title, On the Origin of Phyla (U. of Chicago Press, 2004).  Stefan Bengtson (Swedish Museum of Natural History) reviewed it in the July 29 issue of Nature.1  He points out that “Darwin wisely called […]
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Dumb Ideas

Zoo Monkey Walks Upright
July 22, 2004
For what it’s worth, there’s a story going around about a macaque in an Israeli zoo started walking on its hind legs after a near-death experience (see MSNBC News and picture).  One news source is calling it a missing link, another claiming the strange behavior is due to brain damage. This calls for a monkey […]
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Fossils

New Book Reveals China’s Cambrian Explosion
July 22, 2004
Nature July 221 has a book review about the first volume in English of the Chengjiang biota of China, where tens of thousands of soft-bodied organisms are preserved in early Cambrian strata.  The book, The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Animal Life by Xian-Guang Hou et al., is praised by reviewer […]
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Fossils

Earliest Bilaterian Fossil Claimed
July 14, 2004
Microscopic etchings in rock alleged to be primitive bilaterian fossils have been reported by J.Y. Chen et al. in China.  (Bilateria are organisms displaying symmetry along one axis.)  The report, printed in the July 9 issue of Science,1 dates the fossils at 40-55 million years before the Cambrian.  Erik Stokstad in the same issue2 calls […]
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Early Man

Maybe Neanderthals Were Artists After All
July 8, 2004
Revised dating of human bones near figurines has cast an assumption about early humans into doubt, reports Nature Science Update.  Aurignacian artefacts, like horse figurines and other carved images, have long been thought to be telltale indicators of modern man.  Vogelherd cave near Ulm, Germany was considered the best example, because sandwiched between modern human […]
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Early Man

Another Hominid Find Rocks the Charts
July 3, 2004
Another hominid skull dubbed OL 45500 has been reported in Science,1 a juvenile said to belong to Homo erectus.  Its classification is problematic because it exhibits a mosaic of features rather than fitting neatly into an evolutionary sequence.  The scientists state, “Although the cranium represents possibly the smallest adult or near-adult known between 1.7 and […]
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Dumb Ideas

Key to Evolution of Culture Suggested
June 28, 2004
Visualize chimpanzees exercising their antics in the jungle: grooming, screeching at one another, chasing off rivals.  Now shift the scene to human activities in a large city: fans cheering their team at a stadium, an audience applauding a concert, kids screaming on an amusement park roller coaster, a congregation singing hymns at church, students taking […]
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Dinosaurs

Dinos in the News
June 15, 2004
Three dinosaur finds were reported in the last month: Sauropod:  A new kind of sauropod was found in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) in Montana, reported National Geographic News.  This kind of dinosaur was unexpected, and suggests an unknown fauna existed in a state known more for its Cretaceous meat-eaters.  The skull of this sauropod had […]
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Early Man

Modern Cavemen Found
June 1, 2004
National Geographic News has a remarkable true story about some families that lived underground in the darkness and dampness of a cave for nearly two years in recent times.  And now, the rest of the story: they were Jews hiding out from the Nazis. This incredible story of survival in the midst of danger points […]
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Bible and Theology

Humans and Chimps Compared
May 25, 2004
In case you had an identity crisis last time at the zoo, Current Biology can provide psychoanalysis.  The May 25 issue posted two articles side by side: one, simply entitled “Humans,”1 and the other, “Chimps.”2  Various comparisons are contrasts are drawn, including a few surprising facts, such as this statement: “Based on relative amounts of […]
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Early Man

Early Humans Refused to Be Classified
May 24, 2004
We humans like to classify things, and when we classify ourselves, we sometimes get into trouble.  We create groups of “us” and “them” that breed conflicts.  A fight of sorts is going on between paleoanthropologists, reports Science News1 May 22, over what to make of some skulls found in a cave in Romania.  The skulls […]
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Fossils

Do Fossils Show a Worldwide Record of Evolution?
May 21, 2004
The fossil record provides the acid test for evolutionary theory.  Everyone who walks a real dog by a poodle knows that small-scale variation occurs among living species, but non-evolutionists get understandably annoyed when Darwinians extrapolate the observed variations to encompass all of life: as if to say, because finch beaks vary, therefore humans had bacteria […]
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Fossils

Fossil Water Lily Matches Modern
May 19, 2004
Three Cornell botanists found fossil water lilies from the early Cretaceous that look nearly identical to modern ones, except that they are smaller.  The exquisitely-detailed fossils were preserved in a New Jersey clay pit by a process of coalification.  Water lilies (family Nymphaeaceae) are presumed by evolutionists to be among the earliest flowering plants (angiosperms).  […]
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Dinosaurs

New T. Rex Found; Best-Ever Skull Unveiled
May 14, 2004
National Geographic News has reported the excavation of a possibly complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton at a “secret location,” a private ranch, in Montana.  The curious can monitor the interactive dig at Unearthing T. Rex.     The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh has finally unveiled Samson, the best preserved skull of a Tyrannosaurus […]
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