Evolution

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Something from Nothing Dept.

June 2, 2005

How do you get optimization by chance? In a Concepts piece in Nature this week,1 William J. Sutherland (U. of East Anglia, UK) suggested that the constraints of the environment will drive living systems toward optimal solutions. He thinks that’s how “selective forces” shaped your teeth and jaw, for instance. Economists and engineers use optimization […]

Media

SETI Researcher Joins NG Imagination Fest

May 31, 2005

Space.Com writer Tariq Malik reviewed the National Geographic TV series Extraterrestrial that envisions flying whales, giraffe-like predators and flesh-eating tadpoles on a mythical world undergoing its own evolution. “Using computer models and armed with basic evolutionary theory, the scientists imagined not only what conditions might exist on their theoretical planets,” writes Malik, “but also how […]

Terrestrial Zoology

All You Wanted to Know About Spider Webs, Except Their Evolution

May 25, 2005

Each issue of Current Biology contains a Primer on some interesting subject. The May 24 issue had one about spider webs.1 Fritz Vollrath shared some amazing details about this unique product of the lowly spider, but gave a strange explanation for how the capability to spin strong-as-steel nets evolved. First, the factoids: Structure: …the… common […]

Dinosaurs

Stegosaur Plates Were for Decoration

May 18, 2005

Berkeley scientists are disputing the notion that the rows of plates on the backs of stegosaurs served as heat exchangers. Instead, they were for show. EurekAlert and Science Daily explain that this was probably true of other dinosaur decorations: “The team’s analysis of stegosaur plates lends support to a growing consensus among paleontologists that the […]

Botany

David Attenborough Finds Living Fossil Tree Romantic, Not Devastating

May 12, 2005

England’s famous Kew Royal Botanical Gardens is getting a Wollemi Pine, and David Attenborough, naturalist and evolution popularist, is proud of it. This “living fossil” was thought extinct for 200 million years, but was found alive and well a few years ago in Australia (see 12/15/2000 entry). Grinning like a kid at Christmas, […]

Education

Media, Journals Alarmed at Rise of Intelligent Design Movement

April 29, 2005

The number of articles in the news about the Intelligent Design (ID) Movement is rising, partly because of the upcoming hearings before the Kansas school board. National Geographic news asked, “Does ‘Intelligent Design’ Threaten the Definition of Science?” in an April 27 article, but at least author John Roach got the definition of ID correct, […]

Early Man

Do Neurologists Understand Brain Evolution?

April 3, 2005

Jane Bradbury wrote a feature piece for PLOS Biology recently,1 entitled, “Molecular Insights into Human Brain Evolution.” Help us find the insights. First, she marvels on how “humans sit on top of the pile when it comes to relative brain size.” Then she marvels at how quickly the human brain apparently evolved compared to apes. […]

Fossils

More Convergent Evolution Claimed for Dino-Era Mammal

April 1, 2005

A chipmunk-size mammal with Popeye-like forearms and beaver-like teeth resembling an armadillo? That’s how the discoverers are describing the fossil they named Fruitafossor, a small mammal found near Fruita, Colorado and reported in Science.1 They think it dug burrows and ate termites. Of special interest were the open-root teeth like those of the beaver. Lead […]

Mammals

Migration Theory Overturned: Mammals Went Crazy Or Did Darwinists?

March 29, 2005

The discovery of an elephant shrew fossil in Wyoming badlands said to be 54 million years old is causing a stir. Elephant shrews were thought to be endemic to Africa, the alleged cradle of mammals. This find hints not only that elephant shrews may have originated in North America instead, but also that “there may […]

Genetics

Descendants Can Overcome Parental Mutations

March 28, 2005

Bad genes from both parents may not spell doom in all cases. Scientists at Purdue University found that if two parents have bad mutations, the child can sometimes reconstruct the correct gene from the grandparents. “Our genetic training tells us that’s just not possible,” said Bob Pruitt, co-researcher on the team that ran the experiment […]

Bible and Theology

Easter Essay

March 27, 2005

Accompanied by a picture of a cross and a sunset, captioned “The Sun and the Son,” a somber-looking Brian Walden wrote an essay in the BBC News expressing his reaction to Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees’ “chilling” comment that “It will not be humans who witness the demise of the Sun six billion years hence; […]

Education

NAS President Calls on Scientists to Defend Darwinism

March 24, 2005

The man who described a cell as “a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines” (see 02/10/2003 entry) now wants his fellow scientists to oppose efforts to attribute this factory to design. Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of […]

Uncategorized

Public Not Patronizing Evolution-Based IMAX Films

March 23, 2005

Mark Looy at Answers in Genesis comments on reports that some IMAX movie theaters are dropping evolution-based films because the public is taking offense at them. Looy denies that “religious fundamentalists” or creation organizations are putting any pressure on the theaters. He claims this is just an informal grass-roots response by viewers who are becoming […]

Cosmology

Baloney Detecting Exercise for Students

March 17, 2005

Jeff Barbour’s brief history of everything was published on Universe Today. His essay, entitled “Where does intelligent life come from?” paints a short but sweeping panorama from the Big Bang to humans. Its style is somewhat like watered-down Carl Sagan or gilded Neil deGrasse Tyson (see 09/29/2004 entry). Here’s a sample about the origin of […]

Cell Biology

Bacterial Engineering On Par With Higher Life

March 11, 2005

Bacteria aren’t the simple life-forms microbiologists used to envision, writes Zemer Gitai in Cell.1 Recent advances have demonstrated that bacterial cells have an exquisitely organized and dynamic subcellular architecture. Like their eukaryotic counterparts, bacteria employ a full complement of cytoskeletal proteins, localize proteins and DNA to specific subcellular addresses at specific times, and use intercellular […]

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