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/Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:03:35 GMThttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200807.htm#20080705aWatch a cell divide, and if things go well, it always divides in the middle. How does a cell figure out where its middle is? It follows its contour map. PhysOrg titled its entry, “Dividing cells find their middle by following a protein ‘contour map’.”Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:03:31 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200807.htm#20080704aThanks to Science Daily, we now know that “Evolutionary Origin Of Mammalian Gene Regulation Is Over 150 Million Years Old.” The proof is easy. It is so easy, in fact, that no proof is necessary. One can merely assume it is true. Trust them; they are scientists, after all.Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:42:10 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200807.htm#20080703aThe vein patterns in a leaf approach perfection. If the requirement is to reach every cell with the shortest and most efficient paths, leaves do it just right. A team of scientists at Cornell, “inspired by plant leaves,” tried to build a network in a polymer substrate that would maximize distribution of fluid with evaporation-driven flow. Their “biomimetic leaf” couldn’t improve on the real thing. Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:15:36 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200807.htm#20080702aThe Cassini spacecraft just started its extended mission on July 1. Among its many achievements during the four-year prime mission (2004-2008) was the elucidation of complex processes occurring in Saturn’s rings. One ring in particular, the thin outlying F-ring, attracted particular interest. Voyager scientists from the early 1980s could hardly believe their eyes when separate strands of this narrow ring appeared to braid around each other. Thanks to Cassini, a little more is known now, but the discoveries are no less surprising.Sat, 05 Jul 2008 07:46:09 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200807.htm#20080701aPsychology is often considered a soft science. Anything they pronounce one year is likely to be modified or overturned the next. A few years ago (and still in some quarters), self-esteem was all the rage (now fading, though; see 05/12/2003). We should be assertive and confident, we were told, and make our feelings known. Two recent reports might place more value on self-restraint.Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:42:17 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080630aThose who think cosmology could not get any weirder than it already is may want to take note of recent pronouncements by the gurus of universal physics. Physics teachers in particular may feel an obligation to state Bob Berman’s disclaimer before class: viz, “Warning: The following contains contemporary cosmology. Reading it can produce disorientation and confusion. Nobody knows what’s going on and nothing you read here is likely to be true.”Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:57:39 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080628aJames Kerian, a mechanical engineer, has a colorful term for science reporting these days: “yellow science.” Writing for the Wall Street Journal June 25, he accused scientists of the same kind of sensationalism that disgraced journalism in the days of William Randolph Hearst. The occasion for Kerian’s criticism was reporting about man-made global warming, but the accusations apply in other areas where scientists make pronouncements beyond what is warranted by the evidence. Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:26:35 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080627aA new Gallup Poll shows that American views on evolution have changed little for 26 years. As they have done since 1982, the pollers asked adults if they feel humans evolved millions of years ago (with or without God’s help) or were created by God within the last 10,000 years. The results seem to never change much. 43% to 47% always give the recent-creation answer, and 35-40% the theistic evolution answer. Only 9-14% accept the secular evolutionary answer that humans evolved with no divine guidance.Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:32:59 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080626aAre pigeons like parrots? Are hummingbirds like hawks? And are falcons unlike eagles? Scientists are all a-flutter after results of a massive genetic comparison of birds has put some members in unlikely pigeonholes. “The largest ever study of bird genetics has not only shaken up but completely redrawn the avian evolutionary tree,” said Science Daily reported. “The study challenges current classifications, alters our understanding of avian evolution, and provides a valuable resource for phylogenetic and comparative studies in birds.”Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:42:47 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080625aFossils don’t contain light bulbs, but almost every time a new one is found, scientists claim it sheds light on evolution. The BBC News kept that tradition going with this line, “Scientists say a fossil of a four-legged fish sheds new light on the process of evolution.” What, exactly, was found? Whatever Ventastega curonica was, it would be hard to claim it helped shed any light on evolution, because according to the article, it was an “evolutionary dead end.”Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:28:25 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080624aThe bacterial flagellum, the whiplike outboard motor that has become an icon of intelligent design, has another artificial-looking part: a clutch. Science reported this in “machine language” without any reference to evoluiton.Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:15:54 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080623aHere’s a fascinating area of research for a budding young scientist: the development of animal patterns. Look at the dazzling wing patterns on butterflies in an illustration on Science Daily or consider a zebra’s stripes. How do such patterns emerge from a single fertilized egg? “Although this has been studied for years,” said a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, “there is still a lot we don’t understand.”Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:31:55 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080622aHeart patients can get instant relief from stress by simply looking out at nature through a window, reported Science Daily. It worked better if the patient looked at the real thing, not just a picture on TV.Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:43:01 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080621aNeo-creationists: the Intelligent Design (ID) people as well as the active old creationists, are still to be despised and expelled, thinks an evolutionist. That doesn’t mean, though, that they aren’t making some good points.Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:24:30 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080620aThe old wisdom: stay out of the sun. The new wisdom: your life could depend on getting moderate sunshine: about 10-15 minutes of exposure three times a week.Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:35:13 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080619aEver since Enceladus, the little 300-mile-across moon of Saturn was found in 2005 to be erupting out its south pole, scientists have tried to explain how it could be possible. They have looked high and low for an energy source to power the geysers of the little moon dubbed “Cold Faithful” for billions of years. There have been no answers yet, and none seem to be forthcoming.Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:04:19 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080618aA seed buried under the rubble of Herod the Great’s fortress took root and is now growing into a palm tree. Science Now reported this as verification of claims that ancient seeds can still grow. The Israeli research team nicknamed the tree “Methuselah” after the Old Testament man who sets the Guinness record for human longevity at 969 years. Radiocarbon tests of other seeds from the cache showed dates of 1995-2110 years. That makes this a “date palm” in more than one sense.Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:03:31 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080617bMake a face. How do you make a face? We are all made with faces that can make unique facial expressions, thanks to unique combinations of subcutaneous muscles. Nature News said that humans have unique faceprints of 16 common expression-making muscles.Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:34:09 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080616aPut a string of amino acids into this magic box, and it comes out all precisely folded into a protein. How does it do it? A molecular machine described by Science Daily has scientists baffled. Ironically, its name is TRiC.Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:02:43 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080613aIBM has broken the petaflops barrier. What’s that, you ask? In computing lingo, it stands for a quadrillion floating-point operations per second. The new Roadrunner supercomputer has set a new record for computing speed that may usher in a new era of scientific analysis of complex systems:Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:42:18 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080612aWhat do you see in this pattern? The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is a faint glow of electromagnetic radiation that pervades the universe. What it means is a matter of intense and sometimes bizarre speculation by cosmologists.Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:00:03 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080611aInside your cells are thousands of spell checkers that put any human typist to shame. In a process critical to all living things, RNA Polymerase II transcribes DNA into RNA rapidly with high fidelity. Even very similar chemical letters are accurately discriminated by this wonder of a molecular machine that is described in Science Daily.Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:39:28 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080610bLenski’s done it. The champion of Avida, a computerized evolution demo (see Evolution News) has demonstrated Darwinian evolution with real live organisms. His achievement announces his inauguration into the prestigious National Academy of SciencesTue, 10 Jun 2008 23:57:47 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080610aThe majestic Andes of South America did not rise smoothly and gradually, a team of geologists reported in Science.1 Instead, long periods of stasis for tens of millions of years were punctuated by rapid periods of uplift. It sounds as if punctuated equilibria theory has been stolen from evolutionary biology and applied to geology. They say the Andes – the second largest mountain chain in the world – could have risen over 2 km in about a million years.Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:42:25 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080609aA tinkerer usually implies a human being with a brain. A man in his garage, for instance, might look around for spare parts to arrange into some new contraption. What would he think if he were told that his own brain was made that way? That’s what evolutionists commonly teach: our bodies and our brains were organized not by design or plan, but by nature’s tinkerer: a blind, aimless physical process that somehow cobbled parts together successfully to allow us to think and tinker.Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:56:16 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080606bEvolutionary psychologists are not getting much respect these days. Some evolutionists, like Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewonton, criticized them for years. Now, a new book came out against them and Science gave it a good review. To turn a Darwinian phrase, reviewer Johan J. Bolhuis said that the field of evolutionary psychology is undergoing negative selection pressure.Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:33:01 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080606aThree scientists are suggesting that SETI researchers comb neutrinos for alien messages. Nothing natural could produce high-energy neutrinos, they said in Science,1 so aliens may use their cosmic accelerators to send neutrino packets across the intergalactic internet. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:36:43 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080605aThe flashing colors of butterflies and birds (peacocks being the classic example) do not come from pigments, but from black structures on a microscopic scale. How and why they do it is of great interest to scientists and engineers.Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:43:18 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080604aAsian honeybees and European honeybees went their separate ways millions of years ago, say evolutionists. Why, then, were Asian bees able to readily learn the European language? An international team watched this happen. They ran some affirmative-action integration experiments on the two species, and reported their results today.Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:01:31 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080603at is very common for scientists to claim this or that phenomenon “evolved.” How well do such statements qualify as scientific explanations? How much scientific heavy lifting is done by merely stating that things are the way they are because they evolved that way? The following recent examples can be considered representative of the evolutionary explanations to be found in scientific literature in any given week.Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:45:41 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080602aHumans are tinkering with DNA in ways that appear to blur the boundaries between design and nature.Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:47:52 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200806.htm#20080601aAn article about the evolution of upright posture tells a very Lamarckian story, but no one catches the inconsistency.Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:58:09 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200805.htm#20080531aA slick new multimedia website called Exploring Life’s Origins made its debut this month. Dazzling artwork and detailed animations are highlights of the site. Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:50:37 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200805.htm#20080530aEvolutionary theory explains everything but the kitchen sink, but what if things get out of sync? According to Darwin’s tree of life, things happen in a particular order. The same complex trait should not emerge on separate branches. Findings contrary to the tree pattern could sink the theory – or at least give some Darwinists a sinking feeling.Sat, 31 May 2008 21:44:57 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200805.htm#20080529cJust when the new Phoenix lander was flexing its arm and going to work, hoping to determine the habitability of Mars, two papers came out expressing doubt it will find anything.Fri, 30 May 2008 02:01:12 GMThttp://creationsafaris.com/crev200805.htm#20080529bHow should you stop a child’s tantrum? Think like a Neanderthal, reports Live Science. Dr. Harvey Karp, a pediatrician, “sees our little darlings as less-evolved savages driven by instinct and emotion, not thoughtful reasoning, and he suggests it’s our job as parents to civilize them into Homo sapiens.”Thu, 29 May 2008 22:50:20 GMT