Homage to Diatoms
June 19, 2014
Twenty percent of the air you are breathing came from tiny animals living in crystal cathedrals.
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Parasites Can Help the Ecology
March 16, 2014
A parasitologist suggests that parasites don't just rob and steal; they usually do good as functional players in an ecosystem.
Exceptional Beauty and Design in Animals
March 3, 2014
Here are four animals, some you probably never heard of, that deserve design awards for art and technology.
Vicious Crocodile Attacks Helpless Fruit
November 11, 2013
An evolutionist was surprised to find wild crocodiles eating fruit. He has a lesson for scientists.
Birds and Their Evolution (or Design)
July 30, 2013
Several recent science papers try to find evolution in bird brains, genes, and behaviors. Do they succeed?
Parallel Universe of Microbial "Dark Matter" Revealed
July 20, 2013
As scientists continue to find incredible diversity in the smallest of organisms, realizations of all we've been missing are changing conceptions of life.
Roach Bait Story Highlights Abuse of Word "Evolution"
May 25, 2013
Evolution is one of the most carelessly-used words in science, as several recent articles show. Not all change is evolution the way Darwin meant it.
Burning Plants Tell Seeds When to Germinate
May 6, 2013
Forest fire ash is not all useless. It contains signaling molecules that can switch on the next generation of plants.
An Unexpected Forest Helper: Mistletoe
December 31, 2012
Long thought a tree-killing bane, parasitic mistletoe appears to do much more good than harm to a forest ecology.
Scientific Ignorance Becomes Apparent
July 18, 2012
Two reports indicate that what we know we don't know vastly exceeds what we think we know.
Spiders Can Cross Oceans
May 31, 2012
Why did the spider cross the ocean? To colonize the Old World after it "originated" in the New World.
Rethinking Parasitism
February 4, 2012
Parasitism is bad. Parasitism is evil. Parasites wage war against innocent hosts. This is our mindset. What if parasites can do good? This change of heart seems to be happening for one case, the case of transposable genetic elements. If they are only doing harm to the host, why did some biologists find that “positive selection” seems to be maintaining them? That makes it sound like the cells need them.
Titanosaur Bones Found in Antarctica
January 10, 2012
Strange as it seems, large sauropods of the Titanosaur variety have been found in Antarctica. This is the highest latitude sauropod ever found. It means that the large reptiles inhabited every continent; they walked the globe.
Fungi Shed Light on Deep Biological Mysteries
November 20, 2011
Fungi are among the least studied and least understood organisms. Elevated from plants to their own kingdom in 1969, they are extremely diverse yet difficult to observe, since many species cannot be grown in the lab. The gaps in our knowledge of the fungi are being filled by new efforts to catalog them, but one of the most interesting findings may come from analysis of their genomes. A new study shows that introns (intragenic regions) are more dynamic than previously thought.
Chernobyl Mutation Experiment Fails to Support Darwinism
February 12, 2011
Under mutational load, you don’t get a choice of “Evolve or Perish”; just the latter.