Paleo – Page 97

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Walking Tall: Earth Pushed Hominids Out of Africa

December 19, 2007

Why did humans evolve from stoop-shouldered apemen into tall, proud, big-brained Europeans? Africa pushed them out. That seems to be the idea behind a story spreading throughout the popular science media, such as on Science Daily, entitled, “Geologists Say ‘Wall Of Africa’ Allowed Humanity To Emerge.” The idea is based on circumstantial evidence that, according […]

Dumb Ideas

Walking Upright Is Not Just for Pregnant Females

December 13, 2007

Pregnant women have enhanced curvature of the lower spine, which helps them support their babies during pregnancy. Obviously, this must have evolved that way because emerging apes rising to their feet had different physiological needs. Most science news reports are echoing this theme from a paper in Nature1 without any qualms about the Lamarckism or […]

Dinosaurs

What Mean These Bones?

December 12, 2007

Fossils found in unusual conditions and strange locations tell a silent story. Humans often cannot resist making up their own versions of the plot. Consider the following discoveries. Listen to the stories told about them, and ask: what is the probability the stories are true? How could we ever know? Who is qualified to be […]

Fossils

Evolutionists Explain Living Fossils

December 4, 2007

Why did the living forms look identical to the ancient forms after so many tens of millions of years of evolution?

Dinosaurs

Hadrosaur Skin Flick

December 3, 2007

The press is abuzz with the story of a mummified hadrosaur found in North Dakota with skin and fossilized soft parts; see PhysOrg, Science Daily, Associated Press and BBC News. Since the fully-articulated, uncollapsed, mummified fossil named “Dakota” was discovered in 1999, though, it appears that the announcement is being made now primarily as publicity […]

Dinosaurs

New Dinosaur Finds Astonish Paleontologists

November 30, 2007

Some recent dinosaur discoveries on different sides of the world have produced amazement among scientists and the public as well. Tire tracks uncover dino tracks: ATVs and dirt bikes have ridden for years over a place that is now found to be loaded with dinosaur tracks. Near Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah, […]

Fossils

Early Platypus Stuns Evolutionists

November 27, 2007

With the possible exception of a monotreme tooth assumed to be 62 million years old, the oldest known platypus fossil was dated 15 million years old. Now, a fossil from Australia reported in Science sets a new record: 112 million years old.1 “It’s really, really old for a monotreme,” Timothy Rowe of the […]

Dinosaurs

Multiple Dinosaurs Reclassified as One Species

November 24, 2007

It’s tough sometimes to draw the line between species – especially when dealing with fossils. A report in Science suggests that three bone-headed dinosaurs are probably just different stages of one species.1 These had been named Pachycephalosaurus, Stygimoloch and Dracorex. Erik Stokstad, reporting on activities at the meeting of the Society of Vertebrate […]

Early Man

How Early Man Got High on Generosity

November 19, 2007

Are you generous because of a chemical? That seems to be the claim of researchers from UCLA, Chapman and Claremont. They did a double-blind test with students where they played computer games that required them to make decisions about how to split up a sum of money. The ones who got a whiff of oxytocin […]

Fossils

Darwin As Prognosticator

November 15, 2007

How good was Darwin at making predictions? A good scientific theory should make predictions, at least according to a common assumption about science. PBS thinks Darwin hit a home run, according to an interactive feature on the website for Judgment Day, the documentary about evolution vs intelligent design shown on Nova this week (11/14/2007). The […]

Fossils

Cambrian Jellyfish Found

November 2, 2007

It’s official: jellyfish were part of the Cambrian explosion. National Geographic News has pictures of well-preserved jellyfish fossils from Utah that show even the “distinct bell shape, tentacles, muscle scars, and possibly even the gonads.” These fossils are dated by evolutionary standards at 500 million years old, into the period of the Cambrian […]

Cell Biology

Month-End Close-Out

October 31, 2007

Sometimes the creation-evolution news comes in too fast. Here’s a baker’s dozen from the October shelf, lest they go stale; time to start a new batch for November. Charity begins at worldview: David Cyranoski in Nature (450, 24-25, 10/31/2007) investigated why the level of charitable giving in prosperous Japan is a tenth of that in […]

Fossils

Amphibian Imprints Found

October 30, 2007

Full-body imprints of amphibians claimed to be 330 million years old have been reported from Pennsylvania. “The imprints show the unmistakably webbed feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs.” The story in a press release from the Geological Society of America […]

Dumb Ideas

Machiavellian Monkeys Made Us Compassionate

October 28, 2007

Love, loyalty, patriotism – all the qualities that imbue a romantic novel with soul – came from Rhesus monkeys acting badly. This is the belief of Dario Maestripieri, a primatologist and Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, according to an article in Science Daily. Dr. […]

Early Man

Neanderthals Have Become Like Us

October 25, 2007

The change in attitude about Neanderthals is almost complete. The formerly brutish missing links were pretty modern after all. DNA sequencing of Neanderthal remains, along with new fossil discoveries, have made this subgroup of Homo sapiens for all intents and purposes the equivalents of us. For example: Talk to me bro: Neanderthals probably spoke languages […]

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