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Cosmology

How Well Do We Know What Stuff Is Made Of?
June 17, 2010
When we think of the “hard sciences,” physics usually tops the list.  A closer look at what physicists think the universe is made of, though, hardly makes the science look hard.  Look at this headline on PhysOrg, for instance: “Study finds there may be multiple ‘God particles’”.  The title refers, of course, to the famed […]
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Amazing Facts

Butterfly Wing Shimmer Done With 3-D Crystals
June 15, 2010
Those shimmering flashes of light seen on butterfly wings are not done with pigments.  They’re done with tiny, geometric crystals called gyroids stacked in 3-D patterns, scientists have found.  They are so effective at concentrating color, the scientists want to imitate the trick.     “A precise characterization of color-producing biological nanostructures is critical to […]
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Amazing Facts

Flagellum Replaces Parts on the Fly
June 12, 2010
A new study appears to show that the bacterial flagellum, a molecular rotary motor that has become iconic of the intelligent design movement, can repair parts of its rotor while it is rotating.  The results of the study by Oxford University were published in PNAS,1 and were also the focus of a Commentary in PNAS […]
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Physics

Jupiter Scores Another Hit
June 5, 2010
Amateurs saw Jupiter get struck by something again on June 3.  Last year, an asteroid also hit the giant planet.  Good thing Jupiter caught it and not Earth.  The asteroid, believed to be about 500 meters across, left a scar as big across as the Pacific Ocean.  National Geographic and the BBC News have photos […]
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Amazing Facts

Your Nerves and Heart Depend on Cellular Pulleys, Latches and Switches
June 4, 2010
Biologists continue to peer closer and closer at cellular machines that work just like man-made ones, only at scales so tiny, they control individual atoms.  Of particular interest have been the gates in the membranes of cells that allow certain atoms in but keep others out.  A recent paper in Cell by an Australian team […]
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Cosmology

Science Explains Why the Universe Exists
May 29, 2010
They’ve done it again – those clever scientists have figured out why the universe exists.  What would we ever do without them?  Michael Bolen at Yahoo News had to share the good news, “Scientists discover explanation for why the Universe exists.”  Space.com explained it as a victory in an ancient contest: “Why We Exist: Matter […]
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Darwin and Evolution

How Science Is Done: Upsetting Applecarts
May 19, 2010
Hardly a week goes by without some scientific finding upsetting an applecart – a long-held belief.  Often, those beliefs are scientific theories taught in textbooks by science professors.  Defenders of science say that this is the way science works.  It’s a self-correcting process, they argue; it’s to be expected that new data will lead to […]
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Mt. St. Helens, Washington
Geology

Mt. St. Helens Recalls Overturned Paradigms
May 18, 2010
The eruption of Mt. St. Helens in May 1980 not only eroded mountains and canyons, it caused earthquake shifts in geological paradigms.
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Amazing Facts

Bacteria: Let’s Harness Those “Perfect Machines”
May 11, 2010
Ten Italian scientists have a novel idea.  They want to hitch up their wagons to bacteria and use them to power nanomachines.  It’s too much work to build such “perfect machines” from scratch, they said.  Why not just take advantage of what nature has already provided?     Their paper in PNAS1 is downright dreamy […]
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Human Body

Can Darwin Be Rescued from a New Eye Discovery?
May 7, 2010
Scientists find waveguides and noise receptors built into the retina.
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Amazing Facts

Maxwell’s Demon Helps Run Your Muscles
April 19, 2010
James Clerk Maxwell once speculated that the second law of thermodynamics could be violated if an agent or “demon” could sort the hot and cold molecules at a barrier, thus overcoming the tendency toward thermal equilibrium.  Something like this has been found at work in the molecular machines in our muscles.  The actin-myosin motor is […]
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Physics

Conflicting Reports About Earthlike Planets
April 14, 2010
Are earth-like planets rare or common?  Your opinion might depend on which news stories you read.  “Polluted Old Stars Suggest Earth-like Worlds May Be Common,” reported Space.com and Science Daily.  The idea is that hydrogen in the atmospheres of white dwarfs might have come from water, which might be remains of rocky planets that got […]
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Cosmology

You Live in a Wormhole in a Black Hole
April 10, 2010
Is it publish or perish time?  A physicist at Indiana University thinks that “our universe could have itself formed from inside a black hole existing inside another universe.”  Let Nikodem Paplowski explain his idea: But he also notes that since observers can only see the outside of the black hole, the interior cannot be observed […]
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Amazing Facts

Elephants Equipped with 4WD
March 30, 2010
An elephant is built like a four-wheel drive vehicle, say scientists from the Royal Veterinary College in London.  Unlike other mammals, which divide acceleration and braking between the front and rear legs, “power is applied independently to each limb,” reported PhysOrg from a paper in PNAS.1 “Elephant limbs operate analogously to four-wheel-drive vehicles,” the authors […]
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Physics

No Clear Explanation for Saturn’s Rings After 6 Years of Cassini
March 19, 2010
Those who hoped Cassini would solve the puzzles of Saturn’s rings should read the paper today in Science.1  The state-of-the-rings report, authored by a Who’s Who of ring scientists, is filled with questions.  Titled “An Evolving View of Saturn’s Dynamic Rings,” the report cannot determine their origin, their age, or their composition.  List the points […]
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