VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Physics

Busted!  Planet-Making Theories Don’t Fit Extrasolar Planets
February 23, 2011
Famed planet-hunter Geoff Marcy is giving theorists headaches.  The leading theories of planet formation won’t stand up to observations of hundreds of planets we know.  In National Geographic News reporter Richard Lovett lamented, “The more new planets we find, the less we seem to know about how planetary systems are born, according to a leading […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

Is Star Formation Understood?
February 22, 2011
Astronomers often speak with apparent confidence about regions of active star formation in nebulae or galaxies. A look at the fine print, however, shows plenty of wiggle room when observations don’t quite match theory.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Plant Accelerates 600 G’s
February 17, 2011
Among the fastest organisms in the world is – a plant.  The bladderwort Utricularia, a carnivorous plant that lives in the water, sucks in its prey in a thousandth of a second with an acceleration 600 times the force of gravity.     New Scientist and Science Daily reported on work by the University of […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

How Bacteria Use Their Flagella
February 9, 2011
Do an imaginary mind-meld with a bacterium for a moment.  Visualize yourself encased in a membrane, surrounded by fluid.  You have no eyes, ears, or hands.  You need to find where food is, and avoid danger, so you have organelles that can take in molecules that provide information about what is going on outside, where […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Extreme Biomimetics
February 7, 2011
Imitating spider silk or gecko feet is one thing, but some researchers are going to extremes to try to do what living organisms do. DNA railcar:  Researchers at University of Oxford have constructed a “programable [sic] molecular transport system” that travels like a railcar on DNA molecules, reported PhysOrg.  And that’s not all: they would […]
CONTINUE READING
Biology

Update: Maple-Copter Evolves by Design
January 25, 2011
The rotating helicopter resembling a maple seed, reported on 10/21/2009, has undergone numerous rounds of guided evolution (if that is not an oxymoron). The clever inventors have been trying numerous successive variations on their design, reported PhysOrg. The article includes two video clips showing the young engineers, Evan Ulrich, Darryll Pines, and Sean Humbert from the University of Maryland, testing their product.
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Left-Handed Amino Acids Explained Naturally?
January 10, 2011
The problem of left-handed amino acids in life’s proteins has remained an evolutionary conundrum for decades (see online book and earlier entries).  Another team has tried to tackle it, and boasted great things for their small returns.  Science Daily said, What is the origin of such asymmetry in biological material?  There are two competing hypotheses.  […]
CONTINUE READING
Darwin and Evolution

Insect Wings Are Rainbows of Color
January 9, 2011
Scientists in Sweden have found that a feature of transparent insect wings – their shimmering colors – may have a purpose.  They are not just accidental patterns like the rainbow colors of oil on water, but are stable structures genetically determined for insect recognition and mating.  They call them “wing interference patterns” (WIP) but their […]
CONTINUE READING
Bible and Theology

Loopy Cosmology Goes Abstract
December 17, 2010
A physicist from Warsaw standing by a Picasso painting finds convergence with his thinking about the origin of the universe.  The caption on Science Daily reads, “The lines in the painting are fairly similar to graphs showing the evolution of quantum states of the gravitational field in loop quantum gravity.”  The cosmologist is Prof. Jerzy […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Design Science Scores
December 15, 2010
A team of scientists at Leeds University (UK) led by well-known design scientist Andy McIntosh has won an award for innovative design inspired by nature.  “The team’s work has received the outstanding contribution to innovation and technology title at the Times Higher Education awards in London,” reported the BBC News.     By studying and […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

Can Astronomers See Behind the Big Bang?
November 28, 2010
An astonishing claim is being reported: “Cosmos may show echoes of events before Big Bang” (BBC News).  How can this be, since secular cosmologists claim that the big bang was the beginning of time, space, matter, and everything, and it is impossible even in principle to go beyond it?     The character behind the […]
CONTINUE READING
Biomimetics

Let the Birds Teach You
November 22, 2010
The ancient prophet Job said, “But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you” (Job 12:7).  Maybe the birds of the air can tell us how to fly, and the beasts of the sea how to navigate.  Some scientists are trying that without […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Dinosaur Fossils Flaunt Physics
November 17, 2010
Recent announcements about dinosaurs show that even the large ones exhibited physics fitness.  Their size did not inhibit their mobility. T. rex racer:  Maybe Jurassic Park got it right after all.  According to Science Daily, “Tyrannosaurus rex was far from a plodding Cretaceous era scavenger whose long tail only served to counterbalance the up-front weight […]
CONTINUE READING
Education

Maxwell’s ID Demon Converts Info to Energy
November 16, 2010
Information can be converted into energy – provided it is guided by intelligent design.  That’s what researchers demonstrated with an experimental setup of “Maxwell’s Demon,” a famous thought experiment about how to overcome the Second Law of Thermodynamics.     James Clerk Maxwell knew that the laws of thermodynamics did not allow the spontaneous separation […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Plasma May Revamp Cosmology
November 15, 2010
A “diverse new field” of astrophysics is poised to revolutionize our understanding of stars, energetic galaxies, and perhaps the entire universe.  The properties and interactions of plasma, that hot, electrically-charged gas that makes up the sun and stars, have not been considered as often as matter and light have in astronomy.  A set of top […]
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly" cat_id="19"]