http://www.crev.infoNews from science relating to origins, creation vs. evolution, and intelligent design.Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:33:32 -0800FeedSpring - http://feedspring.com/Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:31:53 GMThttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100207aCentral in the debate whether Homo floresiensis (nicknamed hobbits) were human is the matter of their small brains. Could diminutive human-like skeletons really be human with such small skulls? Scientists at the University of Cambridge conducted a detailed analysis of brain size vs. body size for a number of primates. They found no clear trend, reported PhysOrg. “The results show that while brains evolved to be larger in both relative and absolute terms along most branches of the primate family tree, the opposite happened along several lineages.” Some South American capuchin monkeys compare with African apes in ratio of brain to body size, while gorillas, with large brains, have a compensating larger body, bringing the ratio down. “Our analysis, together with studies of brain size in island populations of living primates,” the researchers said, “suggests we should perhaps not be surprised by the evolution of a small brained, small bodied early human species.” Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:15:17 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100206aClimate change is off-topic for evolution news, but what is taking place in this internationally-potent paradigm is instructive. Its troubles provide fodder for several extra-scientific disciplines: the philosophy of science, the history of science, the rhetoric of science, and the sociology of science. Lessons from the IPCC case can inform citizens about current scientific practices in general – especially highly politicized sciences like evolution. What the world is witnessing in the IPCC case is astonishing – perhaps unprecedented. Within a few months, a solid international consensus has unraveled. It began days before a huge international conference in Copenhagen that was to impose draconian measures on world governments to curb carbon emissions. Emails leaked or stolen revealed something rotten at the IPCC, the international clearinghouse for climate science. Climate skeptics immediately smelled blood; their criticisms went viral on the internet. It didn’t help that Copenhagen suffered one of its coldest winters as politicians traipsed through the snow and cold to figure out how to fight global warming. Relevant or not, the irony was not lost on the public. At first, the response of the scientific community to the Climategate email scandal was to circle the wagons, underestimate the scandal’s impact, and blame the naysayers for their ignorance of the scientific facts. But then, additional scandals came to light, exposing failures in peer review, lapses in scholarship, and evident conflicts of interest. The disconnect between Big Science’s overconfidence and public skepticism has been growing steadily to the point where even staunch supporters of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are calling for deep reforms. Here are a few recent data points in the ongoing saga. Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:38:04 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100205aDon’t eat it; that can of primordial soup sitting on the shelf for decades is rotten. PhysOrg announced, “New research rejects 80-year theory of ‘primordial soup’ as the origin of life.” In its place come new theories about tiny chemical cooking pots in the pores of deep-sea vents. Pioneered by Michael Russell and others, these scenarios picture energy gradients and concentrating mechanisms that might have gotten life cooking deep below the sea. The article is clear that primordial soup is off the shelf. “Textbooks have it that life arose from organic soup and that the first cells grew by fermenting these organics to generate energy in the form of ATP,” said team leader Dr Nick lane from University College London. “We provide a new perspective on why that old and familiar view won’t work at all.” One problem is that there is no energy gradient in such a view: no driving force for chemical reactions. “Despite bioenergetic and thermodynamic failings the 80-year-old concept of primordial soup remains central to mainstream thinking on the origin of life,” said senior author, William Martin, an evolutionary biologist [Insitute of Botany III in Düsseldorf]. “But soup has no capacity for producing the energy vital for life.” There goes a ton of expensive soup down the drain. It sure had a lot of sentimental value. Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:43:46 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100204aPhotographs of dew drops on spider webs are favorite targets for nature photographers, because they resemble strings of pearls on fine jewelry (example 1, example 2). But did you know the reason dewdrops bead up so well on webs is due to the fine microstructure of the spider silk? A team of Chinese scientists studied this phenomenon and reported in Nature how it works. Their description is almost as dazzling as the photos:.Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:54:13 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100203aThere’s 30 times more entropy in the universe than thought, according to Dr. Charley Lineweaver at the Australian National University. PhysOrg said that Lineweaver and a PhD student Charles Egan measured the entropy of the universe. It looks like its feeling pretty run down. “We considered all contributions to the entropy of the observable universe: stars, star light, the cosmic microwave background. We even made an estimate of the entropy of dark matter. But it’s the entropy of super-massive black holes that dominates the entropy of the universe. When we used the new data on the number and size of super-massive black holes, we found that the entropy of the observable universe is about 30 times larger than previous calculations,” said Mr. Egan.Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:02:36 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100202a“The living cell is a self-organizing, self-replicating, environmentally responsive machine of staggering complexity.” Thus began a special section on “Building a Cell” in Nature last week. The section with five papers explores what is known about gene regulation, cell organization and signalling. It’s an opportunity, as well, to see what scientists think about what they are seeing. “This Insight offers a hint of the most exciting research on the regulation of cellular organization and function,” the editors said. Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:43:51 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100201bWould the knowledge the world is filled with alien life bring you comfort? Or are you more comfortable thinking humans are alone in the universe? Seth Shostak, director of the SETI Institute, was interviewed briefly by Bill Hemmer on Fox News this morning, where only one answer to this idea was assumed. Shostak came on the program to talk about the recently-publicized views by astronomer Paul Davies that alien life may be among us in forms we cannot recognize (see PhysOrg and Breitbart News for examples). Shostak agreed with Davies that scientists may be missing it, because we are attuned to look for DNA as evidence of life, but aliens might be made of other stuff – QNA, ZNA or something we don’t know, he quipped. Shostak went on to opine that since life appeared quickly on Earth after its formation, that suggests that life is easy to evolve. He leapt from that suggestion to opine that life might be easy to evolve on other planets, too – i.e., that life is not a miracle, but will appear as a natural consequence anywhere the conditions are right. In the respectful dialogue, Hemmer interjected the option that even if aliens are found, that doesn’t mean they weren’t created miraculously. After all, many people here believe that life is a miracle. Shostak responded (paraphrasing), “Well, that would be comforting, wouldn’t it?” He said a termite in a mound might feel special until it looked out and found termite mounds all over the place. The short interview left off on that note. Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:08:26 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100201aA cosmologist and some musicians want to “sonify the universe” by making music out of stellar events like supernova explosions. In an unusual article for a science media outlet, “Reaching for the Stars to Create Music of the Universe,” Science Daily reported that Nobel laureate George Smoot was inspired by the wishes of a Grateful Dead drummer and Grammy artist Mickey Hart to make music with a bang. “While the supernova can be seen, it can’t be heard, as sound waves cannot travel through space. But what if the light waves emitted by the exploding star and other cosmological phenomena could be translated into sound?” Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:36:00 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100130aScientific experiments can certainly take on a wide variety of methods, from recreating the atmosphere of Titan to testing a drug on a genetic disease. But if educators want to encourage students to become scientists, they had best keep silent about “some very unpleasant experiments” at the University of Leicester reported by the BBC News. The team decided to watch fish heads rot. What they were looking for in this “very smelly” study raises questions about what kind of knowledge can be deduced from experiments. The researchers had an ostensibly noble purpose. They were interested in knowing what happens to dying fish before they become fossilized, in order to interpret more accurately what is found in the fossil record....Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:05:47 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100129aPaleontologists and biologists continue to uncover animals past and present that exhibit amazing diversity. Some of them are so weird and unexpected, they are almost unbelievable. Usually, the news media are quick to tally up points for Darwin by explaining to lay people how they shed light on evolution. But in the “discovery” stage of science, before the “explanation” stage, maybe scientists need time to just assess what it is they are looking at. (4 examples)Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:25:35 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100128aThe king is dead! Long live the king! Such were the oxymoronic cries of olden times when royal succession took place. Has Charles Darwin been dethroned? One would think so, after reading Mark Buchanan’s article, “Horizontal and vertical: the evolution of evolution” in New Scientist. Buchanan sets the stage: Just suppose that Darwin’s ideas were only a part of the story of evolution. Suppose that a process he never wrote about, and never even imagined, has been controlling the evolution of life throughout most of the Earth’s history. It may sound preposterous, but this is exactly what microbiologist Carl Woese and physicist Nigel Goldenfeld, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believe. Darwin’s explanation of evolution, they argue, even in its sophisticated modern form, applies only to a recent phase of life on Earth. Woese and Goldenfeld champion horizontal gene transfer as the overriding process that led to the genetic code and established biology as we know it. The Darwinian part is like a footnote, acting on the last episodes of biological history. Subsequent quotes show even more how far and deep this coup goes: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:55:07 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100127aWho do we wear shoes? It seems obvious; we expect that they help us avoid injuries and provide comfort. Maybe we should think of the injuries we are getting by wearing them. The image of the barefoot person is usually of someone poor, deprived, lower-class, hick, unclean, redneck or something else unattractive. Shoes are a big business. Within that business, running shoes have become part status symbol, part science. Those images might change if a study by Daniel Lieberman at Harvard is taken seriously. PhysOrg summarized his paper in Nature in which he analyzed the physics of runners with and without shoes. Barefoot runners, he found, strike the ground differently. Their feet absorb the shock of impact by landing more on the arch and ball of the foot than on the heel. Shod runners tend to be heel-strikers. “Most shod runners -- more than 75 percent of Americans -- heel-strike, experiencing a very large and sudden collision force about 1,000 times per mile run,” the article explained. “People who run barefoot, however, tend to land with a springy step towards the middle or front of the foot.” This gives them a “more compliant, or springy, leg.” The impact of the heel strike is reduced in good running shoes. Still, it could lead to repetitive stress injuries.Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:29:28 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100126aThe news media are telling us that bats and dolphins both hit on the same genetic pathway to evolve echolocation – even though they are on vastly different evolutionary lineages and use echolocation differently (one in air, one in water). Since it is inconceivable that a putative shrew-like common ancestor of these very different animals already had echolocation, the biologists claim that dolphins and bats followed the same evolutionary pathway, even down to the evolution of a single molecule. Is this an explanation of how they came to have these traits, or a rescuing device intended to save evolutionary theory from the evidence? Science Daily and New Scientist both echoed the conclusions of two papers in Current Biology. The papers found that phylogenetic trees based on the cochlear gene Prestin include bottlenose dolphins and microbats together. They claim to have ruled out all other hypotheses (such as horizontal gene transfer, DNA contamination, gene paralogy, long-branch attraction, and biased amino acid frequencies) as unlikely, so “convergence” must explain the similarities. In short, natural selection converged on the same genetic set of mutations to the Prestin gene because echolocation was adaptive. The first paper concluded, “Regardless, our findings of adaptive sequence convergence between two highly divergent groups that share a complex phenotype is unprecedented, and suggests sequence convergence may be more common than previously suspected.”Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:23:34 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100125bThe BBC is going to air a movie made by chimpanzees. (Note: This is not a Planet of the Apes remake.) A primatologist working on her PhD gave some chimps at the Edinburgh zoo a “Chimpcam,” a camcorder in a “chimp-proof” box, to see what they would come up with. “Despite the fact that the chimps had never taken part in a research project before, they soon displayed an interest in film-making,” the article said. The chimps did not seem particularly interested in the screenplay, though....Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:22:54 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100125aWhat are aliens doing in science news reports? There is no evidence they even exist. That has not hindered some reporters from speculating. BBC News reporters Pallab Ghosh headlined an entry “Astronomers hopeful of detecting extra-terrestrial life” and adorned it with a Hollywood-style alien corpse. The article highlighted the optimism of Lord Rees, the president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal of Britain, who thinks we are getting close and it will be a momentous discovery to find extraterrestrial life. New Scientist went even further and speculated on what aliens will look like. Reporter Stephen Battersby acknowledged there is no evidence for “Tentacled monsters, pale skinny humanoids, shimmery beings of pure energy... When it comes to the question of what alien life forms might look like, we are free to let our imagination roam,” he said. “The science-in-waiting of extraterrestrial anatomy has yet to acquire its first piece of data, so nobody knows what features we will behold if and when humans and aliens come face-to-face. Or face to squirmy something.” Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:04:00 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100123aPaul Davies, no stranger to tackling difficult questions and proposing imaginative solutions, is coming out with a new book in April about SETI. He faces the Fermi Paradox: if aliens are out there, why haven’t they dropped by yet? Amazon.com lists some of the ideas to be presented in The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence: “The author surveys popular topics in science fiction such as Dyson spheres, time travel, and wormholes, and decides that they’re not feasible under physics as we understand it. He concludes with a far-ranging look at what might happen here on Earth when we make first contact.”Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:42:32 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100122aBiogeography – the study of the distribution of species – has been an important part of evolutionary theory, and has often been used as evidence for evolution. Some recent findings about plants and animals should give scientists caution about trying to divine too much evolutionary history from locations of present-day organisms and fossils. (3 examples)Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:23:42 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100121a Dogs are barking for Darwin and proving him right. How? By illustrating “survival of the cutest.” No kidding; Science Daily shamelessly announced, “‘Survival of the Cutest’ Proves Darwin Right.”Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:10:20 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100120aThe amount of trust the public puts in scientific claims stems partly from their incomprehensibility. The claims presented in scientific papers are often so dense and abstruse as to be unapproachable by all but specialists. Undoubtedly many people trust scientists because of their specialized education, their knowledge of mathematics, their special equipment, and their use of the “scientific method” (however that is defined) that is assumed to lead to reliable knowledge. The popular press tries to condense and explain scientific explanations in plain English, but at the risk of oversimplifying, editorializing, misinterpreting, misconstruing or hyping the evidence. At times, though, explanations seem so beyond experience that it is right to at least ask the question how can they be justified. Some recent examples might serve to illustrate the problem. (7 examples from cosmology and geology.)Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:53:54 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100119aResearch papers into the processes of molecular machines continue to reveal moving parts: “fingers” that open and close, ratchets that lock into place, and feet that move along tracks. Here are a few samples from the voluminous literature that continues to pour from biophysics labs (4 examples, 6 scientific papers).Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:07:13 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100118aStem cell research has not been as prominent in the popular media lately, but researchers continue to make impressive strides – mostly with adult stem cells. Science Daily reported the first success treating leukemia with stem cells from umbilical cord blood. A researcher at the Hutchinson Center said, “The real ground-breaking aspect of this research is that we have shown that you can manipulate stem/progenitor cells in the lab with the goal of increasing their numbers. When given to a person, these cells can rapidly give rise to white blood cells and other components of the blood system.” This is but one more dramatic advance in the use of adult stem cells. Whatever happened to the rush for embryonic stem cell therapies? It has largely been trampled by the recent stampede to use adult tissues and induced pluripotent stem cellsMon, 18 Jan 2010 07:09:28 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100117aConsider two propositions: (1) Plants are highly complex, integrated systems that we don’t fully understand. (2) They evolved to become highly complex, integrated systems. That’s basically what two scientists claimed in the American Journal of Botany, according to Science Daily reported. But do these two propositions comport with one another?Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:52:11 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100115aLast March, scientists publishing in Geology falsified the so-called “Permian Extinction,” calling it a “non-event.” (see 03/09/2009). Not only was there no smoking gun of a catastrophe in the rocks, the scientists said that the “claims of rapid vertebrate recovery... also must be called into question.” Our commentary at the time wondered how long it would take for other scientists to recognize the falsification. Well, now it’s almost a year later, and some are still speaking of the Permian Extinction as if they didn’t hear the news. From two falsified notions in the article, we can begin to quantify the Law of Inertia for Falsified Theories.Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:18:20 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100114aThe arctic tern makes a marathoner look like a wimp. This little bird has been confirmed as the migratory bird with the longest route, flying annually from pole to pole. A team of international scientists obtained the results by using an implanted geolocator on several birds, and tracking their actual path. The story is told by PhysOrg and the BBC News. “Albatrosses, godwits, and sooty shearwaters all undertake epic journeys,” the BBC said, “But none can quite match the Arctic tern’s colossal trip.” They found that half the birds flew along South America on the way down, and others followed the coast of Africa, but all returned northward the same way. The team was surprised to find the birds following an S-curve home when flying north. They figured that it allows the birds to conserve energy when flying over the trackless Atlantic Ocean by riding the prevailing winds. The detour, even though thousands of miles longer, is actually more energy efficient. The round trip is about 70,000 kilometers (43,000 miles). An average arctic tern, weighing only 3.5 ounces, will fly “the equivalent of three trips to the moon and back over its lifetime.” Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:26:06 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100113aWe want value for our science dollars. We know artists are into self-expression, but scientists need to offer more than just artistic prose: they are supposed to be in the knowledge generation business. So we expect to gain one of two things from their scientific explanations. One, we would like to gain practical knowledge that can improve our lives: such as a better understanding of cancer that can motivate more effective treatments. But even if we cannot hope for a practical payoff, we hope to gain understanding of natural phenomena. Black holes may not be practical, for example, but we want to understand what they are and what they do. Most of all, we expect the knowledge gained to be empirical – based on observations, with theories that can be tested and verified. Evolution is often presented as the explanation for many things in science. But how much does evolution pay in terms of practical benefits and understanding? Hearing a person describe a notion out of his or her own mind, which cannot be tested, does neither. Speculation is cheap. If we wanted entertainment, we could go see Avatar or watch a comedy show. Ask what return on investment, if any, is being provided in terms of knowledge by the following scientific explanations. (6 examples)Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:49:00 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100112aScientists and engineers continue to find the most elegant solutions to practical problems by looking at plants and animals. Here are a few of the recent examples. (3 examples from neurons, slime molds and plants on computing power, energy production and efficient planning.)Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:08:04 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev201001.htm#20100111aThere’s a new theory for how Enceladus can be so active but still be 4.5 billion years old. It erupts only every billion years or so. This was explained on PhysOrg. Heat builds up slowly then is “released as one catastrophic event around every billion years or so.” The scientists already knew that “Enceladus was an enigma.” They said, “Somehow it seems to be pumping out more energy than it gets, which would violate the laws of thermodynamics.” But that’s only if it is really as old as claimed. Their conclusion was based on a computer simulation. It showed that “The ice sheets would flow like glaciers, the heat causing geysers to pop up all over the active surface.” Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:49:59 GMT