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Solar System

More Youth on Titan
April 9, 2011
Hopes that Saturn’s giant moon Titan might have volcanoes just dropped.  A new paper in Icarus1 concludes Titan gets its geology from the outside, not the inside.  If confirmed, it implies all the surface features were created by wind, impacts and weather – not by active geology.  The hopeful cryovolcano announced last year (Sotra Facula, […]
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Fossils

Science Discovers the Unexpected and the Obvious
March 30, 2011
Young’s Law jokes, “All great discoveries are made by mistake.”  Here are some recent examples. Arch-istan:  Think the world’s natural features are all well known?  “Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have stumbled upon a geological colossus in a remote corner of Afghanistan: a natural stone arch spanning more than 200 feet across its base,” […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Scientists: Who Can You Believe?
March 29, 2011
Scientists form a kind of knowledge priesthood in our modern world, but when long-taught principles get overturned, it raises questions on what scientists really know. Windy geology:  Wind is a more powerful force for eroding mountains than previously thought.  University of Arizona quoted Paul Kapp, an associate professor of geosciences at U of A saying, […]
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Solar System

It’s Raining Methane on Titan’s Dunes
March 18, 2011
Imagine a world where it rains liquid natural gas.  That world is Titan, the Mercury-sized moon of Saturn.  In Science this week,1 Cassini scientists reported large equatorial clouds over Titan’s vast dune fields, and a darkening of the surface after an apparent cloudburst.  Since only hydrocarbons can be liquid at the temperatures there, and methane […]
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Solar System

Titan’s Methane Lakes Shallow, Dynamic
February 19, 2011
Strange things are happening on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon: lakes are appearing and disappearing.  This can only mean that the lakes are shallow and the liquid hydrocarbons in them are moving around.     Lakes were discovered a few years ago in the northern regions of the Mercury-size moon.  They consist predominantly of methane (CH4) […]
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Dumb Ideas

Bubble Life Could Have Had Armor
February 14, 2011
A headline posted by Science Daily is self-explanatory: “Clay-Armored Bubbles May Have Formed First Protocells: Minerals Could Have Played a Key Role in the Origins of Life.”  The operative words are may have and could have, which, being mere suggestions, are unfalsifiable.  If it didn’t happen here, it may have or could have happened on […]
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Solar System

Martian Chronicles
February 3, 2011
Recent news stories about Mars can be categorized into past, present, and future. Mars past:  How Mars formed is a convoluted story.  That is evident from a report on PhysOrg that might suggest Mars modelers are drinking too much to relieve stress: “‘Marstinis’ could help explain why the red planet is so small.”  Mars seems […]
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Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Bones Crack Open Surprises: Original Tissue
January 30, 2011
Nature is kind.  That’s nice to know; but what was the context of the statement in New Scientist?  “Occasionally, though, nature is kind and fossilisation preserves details of an animal’s soft tissue.”  But has nature been kind for tens of millions of years?  In an article called “Soft-centred fossils reveal dinosaurs’ true colours,” Jeff Hecht […]
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Cell Biology

Long Life in Death Valley Claimed
January 13, 2011
“34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive!” blares a headline at Live Science.  Reporter Andrea Mustain admitted “It’s a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-if movie,” but assures us this one is scientific.     Brian Schubert (U of Hawaii) dug up salt crystals in the floor of Death Valley and found […]
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Amazing Facts

Mummified Trees Found in Arctic
December 18, 2010
Like Narnian children finding a zoo of lifeless stone statues in the White Witch’s wintry realm, scientists have come across frozen trees, leaves and seed pods deep in the Canadian arctic.  “The dry, frigid site is now surrounded by glaciers and is completely treeless,” said National Geographic News.  What deep magic left this mummified forest […]
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Education

News from Saturn
December 7, 2010
Amazing discoveries continue to pour in from Cassini, now within its second extended mission since arriving at Saturn in 2004.  The spacecraft is back to nominal operations after a 3-week safing event caused by a single-bit error in the onboard computer (JPL).  The recovery came just in time for another major flyby of Enceladus. Enceladus […]
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Terrestrial Zoology

Speleology Without Evolution
December 1, 2010
“Steven Taylor, a macro-invertebrate biologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois, has spent more than two decades plumbing the mysteries of cave life,” an article said on PhysOrg, based on a press release from the University of Illinois.  The article describes his adventures in tight, dark spots in numerous caves, […]
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Uncategorized

How Long Does it Take to Form a Slot Canyon?
November 26, 2010
Some of the most striking features of the southwest are the slot canyons – the narrow, winding defiles in sandstone that can be well over a hundred feet deep and go for miles (photo).  A whole culture of slot canyoneering takes on the challenge of hiking through them, and the amazing patterns of reflected light […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Darwin Dethroned by Geologist
November 11, 2010
Gradual evolution seems synonymous with Charles Darwin, but a geologist at New York University disagrees.  According to an article on PhysOrg, Michael Rampino thinks Patrick Matthew deserves the credit for a different, more realistic view of evolution – a catastrophist view: “Matthew discovered and clearly stated the idea of natural selection, applied it to the […]
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Solar System

Keeping Saturn Old
October 7, 2010
Keeping a planet like Saturn going for billions of years has been a problem lately, especially when evidences show that what we see today of its rings and moons could not have lasted that long. Ringside gambling:  The rings of Saturn are majestic, colorful, and young-looking.  Their ices are too clean, and the forces acting […]
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