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Once again, a NASA space probe is supporting the 6,000-year biblical age of the solar system. On 14 January 2008, the Messenger spacecraft flew by the innermost planet of the solar system, Mercury. It was the first of several close encounters before Messenger finally settles into a steady orbit around Mercury in 2011.1 As it passed, it made quick measurements of Mercury’s magnetic field and transmitted them successfully back to Earth. On 4 July 2008, the Messenger team reported the magnetic results from the first flyby.2 As I mentioned on the CMI website earlier,3,4 I have been eagerly awaiting the...

Footprints in the ash By Sid PerkinsMay 29th, 2008Humans may have been walking around what is now central Mexico 40,000 years ago HUMAN PRINTSFootprints (one left) left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico’s Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years could be evidence that humans have inhabited the Americas far longer than previously confirmed. Laser scans of the prints (right) confirm their human origins, the researchers report today at the American Geophysical Union meeting. Footprints left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico’s Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years ago are evidence that humans have inhabited the Americas far longer...

An armored fish was about to become a mom some 380 million years ago. Though the primitive fish perished, its fossilized remains remarkably reveal an embryo and umbilical cord inside the soon-to-be mother's body. The discovery marks the oldest evidence of an animal giving live birth, pushing the known record of such reproduction back by some 200 million years. It also supports the idea that internal fertilization in vertebrates (animals with backbones) originated in a group of primitive fish. "When I first saw the embryo inside the mother fish, my jaw dropped," said researcher John Long, a paleontologist at Museum...

On Tuesday night, Republicans lost a Republican congressional district in a special election in Mississippi. Party insiders fear the loss may be just another sign of a coming bloodbath for congressional Republicans this November. Democrat Travis Childers’ victory over Republican Greg Davis in Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District yesterday dealt the GOP its third straight loss of a solid Republican district to insurgent Democrats in this year’s special elections. With nearly all precincts reporting, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Childers held a 54 percent to 46 percent lead over Southaven Mayor Davis. The seat was vacated by Republican Roger Wicker when he...

In the first analysis of proteins extracted from dinosaur bones, scientists say they have established more firmly than ever that the closest living relatives of the mighty predator Tyrannosaurus rex are modern birds.

How the mainstream press has missed the single most important angle to what’s happening in Kosovo. On back-to-back days in December 1991, the New York Times published two separate articles highlighting Germany’s alarming and audacious decision to recognize and legitimize the efforts of Slovenia and Croatia to break away from Yugoslavia. Both articles (you can read them here and here) are refreshingly honest and hold little back in their analysis of Germany’s seminal role in the violent fragmentation of Yugoslavia. In this article, Paul Lewis cites European diplomats who warned that Germany’s decision to support Croatia and Slovenia, despite opposition...

For the sixth time since the mid-1980s, an economic slowdown has left the state facing a decline in revenue over the previous fiscal year. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to order agencies to draft 2008-09 budgets with 10 percent cuts is a harbinger of a grim era likely to last until the housing slump and lending-debt crisis abate. We're already being told this bad news was inevitable in a state that relies so heavily on volatile personal income taxes. Don't believe it. If not for the grossly irresponsible budgets of recent years, the coming era would be mildly unpleasant, not grim....

Boxgrove The man who died half a million years ago In a gravel pit at Boxgrove, just outside Chichester, the remains of a man have been discovered, half a million years old. Only a shin bone and two teeth were discovered, but his position, under thick layers of gravel show that he is the oldest 'man' so far discovered in Britain. The Boxgrove quarry The discovery was made in a gravel quarry. The gravel was laid down in a later Ice Age on top of a chalk bed, which is visible in the upper squares. Originally a stream flowed from...

In the past week, the criticisms swirling around the President's VFW speech have provided much less insight into the President or the speech than into the critics. Rather than address the speech's central issue -- the 1975 debate over the ramifications of abandoning Vietnam -- these individuals have tried to push their own views on Iraq by mentioning other aspects of Vietnam. Emblematic of the attackers was Senator John Kerry, who said that the President's comparison of Vietnam with Iraq was "irresponsible" and "ignorant of the realities of both of those wars." Kerry explained that in Iraq, as in Vietnam,...

The discovery of a new species of great ape that roamed Africa 10m years ago has forced scientists to rethink the earliest steps of human evolution. Fossil hunters working along the Afar rift in central Ethiopia unearthed remnants of teeth they claim belonged to the primitive ape, a previously unknown species of gorilla they named Chororapithecus abyssinicus. The finding, if confirmed, will redraw the evolutionary tree of primates, suggesting that humans and chimpanzees must have split from their gorilla-like ancestors 3m years earlier than thought. Geneticists have previously put the date at which the human and chimpanzee lineage split from...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - After 3.2 million years in East Africa, one of the world's most famous set of fossils was quietly flown out of Ethiopia overnight for a U.S. tour that some experts say is a dangerous gamble with an irreplaceable relic. Although the fossil known as Lucy had been expected to leave the Ethiopian Natural History Museum this month, some in the nation's capital were surprised the departure took place under cover of darkness with no fanfare Sunday. "This is a national treasure," said Kine Arega, a 29-year-old attorney in Addis Ababa. "How come the public has no...

Iraqis call Ali Hassan al-Majeed "Chemical Ali," and few wept when the notorious former general received five death sentences last month for ordering the use of nerve agents against his government's Kurdish citizens in the late 1980s. His trial came as a reckoning and a reminder -- summoning up the horrors of Saddam Hussein's rule even as it underscored the way today's heated Iraq debates in Washington have left the key issue of human rights on the sidelines. People of goodwill can certainly disagree over how to handle Iraq, but human rights should be part of any responsible calculus. Unfortunately,...

PRINCETON, NJ -- The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain. Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant...

Tel Aviv University anthropologists say they have disproven the theory that "Lucy" - the world-famous 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in Ethiopia 33 years ago - is the last ancestor common to humans and another branch of the great apes family known as the "Robust hominids." The jaw bone of Lucy and the jaw bone of Australopithecus afarensis.

As I often do I checked Hugh's page first thing this morning. I saw his post where he takes a fellow Salem Colleague Dr. Richard Land to task for his observations on the possibility of a Guiliani general election candidacy. Hugh believes that it is an impossibility that social conservatives would sit out a general election match-up that featured Rudy Guiliani. Dr. Land disagrees. Hugh believes that his experiences speaking in front of audiences and conducting surveys of the audience is giving him a better barometer of the assessment on the ground than Land's perspective as an activist. I've seen...

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered the oldest bee ever known, a 100 million year old specimen preserved in almost lifelike form in amber, and an important link to help explain the rapid expansion of flowering plants during that distant period. The findings and their evolutionary significance are outlined in an article to be published this week in the journal Science. The specimen, at least 35-45 million years older than any other known bee fossil, has given rise to a newly-named family called Melittosphecidae – insects that share some of the features of both bees and...

Flood made Britain into an island 'in 24 hours' By Tim Hall (Filed: 25/09/2006) Britain may have become an island after a Biblical-style flood split it from Europe in less than 24 hours, according to new geological research. The flood would have taken place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, sweeping away hills between Britain and what is now France. The theory could rewrite British prehistory, as current text-books teach that Britain - once a peninsula of continental Europe - split from the great land mass after a long process of erosion and rises in sea levels. However, surveys of...

The 3.3-million-year-old fossilised remains of a human-like child have been unearthed in Ethiopia's Dikika region. The female bones are from the species Australopithecus afarensis , which is popularly known from the adult skeleton nicknamed "Lucy". Scientists are thrilled with the find, reported in the journal Nature. They believe the near-complete remains offer a remarkable opportunity to study growth and development in an important extinct human ancestor. The skeleton was first identified in 2000, locked inside a block of sandstone. It has taken five years of painstaking work to free the bones. "The Dikika fossil is now revealing many secrets about...

LONDON (Reuters) - Neanderthals may conjure up images of an uncivilized, brutish species but they were surprisingly early developers, researchers said Wednesday. Although Neanderthals disappeared from Europe about 30,000 years ago, scientists at the French research institute CRNS in Paris have uncovered new details about them by studying teeth fossils. The findings, reported in the science journal Nature, suggest Neanderthals reached adulthood by the age of 15 -- about three years before early modern humans -- probably ate a high calorie diet and were a distinct species from modern humans. "Neanderthals, despite having a large brain, were characterized by a...

To most common terrestrial dwellers, there's no place like Earth. But new simulations show that many Earth-like planets might exist outside of our solar system. Through computer simulations scientists examined the formation and evolution of giant planet systems recently detected outside the Earth's solar system. Their results revealed that more than a third of them might contain planets that could potentially support life and could even be covered with deep oceans. The study focuses on a type of planetary system unlike our solar system that contains gas giants known as "hot Jupiters" orbiting extremely close to their parent stars—even closer...

Fossil hunters in China have discovered what may be one of the weirdest prehistoric species ever seen -- a four-winged dinosaur that apparently glided from tree to tree. The 128-million-year-old animal -- called Microraptor gui, in honor of Chinese paleontologist Gu Zhiwei -- was about 2 1/2 feet long and had two sets of feathered wings, with one set on its forelimbs and the other on its hind legs. Exactly where the creature fits into the evolution of birds and dinosaurs is not clear. But researchers speculated that it developed around the same time as or even later than...

Scientists have extracted intact bone marrow from the fossilized remains of 10-million-year-old frogs and salamanders. The finding, detailed in the August issue of the journal Geology, is the first case of fossilized bone marrow ever to be discovered and only the second report of fossilized soft tissue. In June of 2005, scientists announced they had found preserved red blood cells from a Tyrannosaurus rex leg bone. "It pushes back the boundary for how far [soft tissue] fossilization can go," said study leader Maria McNamara of University College Dublin in Ireland. Why it matters Preserved soft tissue could provide insight into...

The question of what happened before the Big Bang long has frustrated cosmologists, both amateur and professional. Though Einstein's theory of general relativity does an excellent job of describing the universe almost back to its beginning, near the Big Bang matter becomes so dense that relativity breaks down, says Penn State physicist Abhay Ashtekar. "Beyond that point, we need to apply quantum tools that were not available to Einstein." Now Ashtekar and two of his post-doctoral researchers, Tomasz Pawlowski and Parmpreet Singh, have done just that. Using a theory called loop quantum gravity, they have developed a mathematical model that...

Prehistoric Desert Town Found in Western Sahara Thu Aug 19, 2004 01:52 PM ET RABAT (Reuters) - The remains of a prehistoric town believed to date back 15,000 years and belong to an ancient Berber civilization have been discovered in Western Sahara, Moroccan state media said on Thursday. A team of Moroccan scientists stumbled across the sand-covered ruins of the town Arghilas deep in the desert of the Morocco-administered territory. The remains of a place of worship, houses and a necropolis, as well as columns and rock engravings depicting animals, were found at the site near the town of Aousserd...

Reason to Believe A leading geneticist argues that science can lead to faith. Reviewed by Scott Russell Sanders THE LANGUAGE OF GOD A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief By Francis S. Collins Here we are, briefly, under the sun, one species among millions on a gorgeous planet in the remote provinces of the universe, our very existence a riddle. Of all the words we use to mask our ignorance, none has been more abused, none has given rise to more strife, none has rolled from the tongues of more charlatans than the name of God. Nor has any word been...

This little video was shown at the apologetics group at the McLean Bible Church last week and the effect on viewers was rather striking. Lucy is the 40% more-or-less complete australopithicus skeleton which is commonly presented as a missing link of sorts, and the thought processes behind the manner in which reconstructions of lucy are presented indicates a mindset in which, at every juncture at which reality clashes with ideology, it is reality which simply gets tossed. Lucy's actual remains did not included hands or feet and reconstructions are commonly presented with human or near-human hands and feet despite the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The best evidence yet for the oldest life on Earth is found in odd-shaped, rock-like mounds in Australia that are actually fossils created by microbes 3.4 billion years ago, researchers report. "It's an ancestor of life. If you think that all life arose on this one planet, perhaps this is where it started," said Abigail Allwood, a researcher at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology and lead author of the new study. It appears Thursday in the journal Nature. The strange geologic structures - which range from smaller than a fingernail to taller than a man - are...

Scientists Sequence Neanderthal Genome For First Time Biochemist predicts that nuclear DNA sequences will show Neanderthals did not evolve into modern humans NEWS ADVISORY, June 01, 2006, /Christian Wire Service/ - - At the Biology of Genomes meeting held recently at New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, scientific teams from the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California reported on the first-ever Neanderthal nuclear DNA sequences. These researchers sequenced about 1 million base pairs, or genetic letters, of the Neanderthal genome for a 45,000-year-old male specimen recovered from the...

Darwin was wrong, and his modern-day adherents perpetuate his mistakes. That sounds like the opening salvo of an advocate for Intelligent Design or some other religiously driven critique of the theory of evolution. But it actually summarizes the ideas of Jeffrey Schwartz, a noted anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh and one of a growing group of critics of standard Darwinian theory. Most of the recent publicity Dr. Schwartz has received has focused on his role in creating life-sized replicas of George Washington for display at Mount Vernon. Much of his career, though, has been devoted to human evolution and...

May 17 (UPI) -- Humans and chimpanzees may have interbred millions of years ago after the two species initially separated, according to a study published in Nature. If hybridization -- creating a new form of plant or animal life by combining two species -- did occur between humans and chimpanzees, ``one might need to modify the evolution displays in museums,'' Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor David Reich wrote in an e-mail message. The study, ``Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees,'' says the X chromosome is much younger than previously thought and may mean that after human and...

One of biggest paradigm shifts in origins in recent years is when genetics and morphological studies began to show that Neanderthals and humans weren’t related. Sure, a lot of Darwin Fundies around here don’t know that because they get all of their science from the talking point lists of their Fundamentalist Leaders. So this is probably a big shock too, science is also showing that man is not related to any hominids including apes. In the groundbreaking book, Who was Adam?, biochemist Fazale Rana examines the scientific research that is overturning Darwinian Fundamentalism. Here, using peer-reviewed research that the Darwin...

Genetic mutation is the process by which change (such as point mutations or insertions) occurs regarding the specific ordered relationships between biological molecules, molecules such as DNA polymerase or deoxyribonucleic acid. These mutations occur by the motion of molecules relative to one another. This motion is not random; rather, it proceeds in a particular direction. The direction governing the motion of these molecular bodies is controlled by particular forces. The atomic particles within the molecules always seek the state of lowest energy, known as equilibrium. They do not seek a state merely approaching lowest energy, but that of the lowest...

In January 2006, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society were in the forests of Tanzania searching for a grayish, tree-dwelling primate that had been identified in photographs as a new species the previous summer. Half a world away, in a laboratory at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Assistant Professor Link Olson and undergraduate biology major Kyndall Hildebrandt were looking at DNA test results that pointed to an even more notable finding. The monkey wasn't just an example of a new species; it belonged to a new genus. “A new genus in any living mammal group is noteworthy,” said Olson, who...

AP - In an undated photo provided by Professor Rodolfo Coria, a dog sits by a replica of the head of a Mapusaurus roseae at the Carmen Funes Museum in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The dinosaur was discovered in the Patagonia region of Argentina and appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known. (AP Photo/HO/Prof. Rodolfo Coria) Scientists are learning more about what appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known, a two-legged beast whose bones were found several years ago in the fossil-rich Patagonia region of Argentina. One expert called the discovery the first substantial...

It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel — and scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It's a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years. The long-whiskered rodent made international headlines last spring when biologists declared they'd discovered a brand new species, nicknamed the Laotian rock rat. It turns out the little guy isn't new after all, but a rare kind of survivor: a member of a family until now known only from fossils. Nor is it a rat. This species, called Diatomyidae, looks...

Dodo birds are famous for two things: being dumb and being dead. So when Randy Olson calls fellow biologists "dodos" in his new documentary "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," it's not meant as a compliment. Dodos were flightless, odd-looking birds discovered by Portuguese sailors in the early 1500s on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, just east of Madagascar. The birds were named after the Portuguese word for "fool" because they were fearless of humans and would walk up to hungry hunters who simply clubbed them to death and ate them. The birds were extinct by the...

Five siblings from Turkey who can only walk on all fours could provide science with an insight into human evolution, researchers have said. The three sisters and two brothers could yield clues to why our ancestors made the transition from four-legged to two-legged animals, says a UK expert. But Professor Nicholas Humphrey rejects the idea that there is a "gene" for bipedalism, or upright walking. A BBC documentary about the family will be shown on Friday 17 March. Professor Humphrey, from the London School of Economics (LSE), says that our own species' transition to walking on two feet must have...

Charles Darwin would undoubtedly be both pleased and chagrined. The famous scientist would be pleased because a study published online this week provides the first clear evidence that natural selection, his favored mechanism of evolution, drives the process of species formation in a wide variety of plants and animals. But he would be chagrined because it has taken nearly 150 years to do so. What Darwin did in his revolutionary treatise, “On the Origin of Species,” was to explain how much of the extraordinary variety of biological traits possessed by plants and animals arises from a single process, natural selection....

A new, more robust analysis of recently derived human gene trees by Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D, of Washington University in St Louis, shows three distinct major waves of human migration out of Africa instead of just two, and statistically refutes — strongly — the 'Out of Africa' replacement theory. That theory holds that populations of Homo sapiens left Africa 100,000 years ago and wiped out existing populations of humans. Templeton has shown that the African populations interbred with the Eurasian populations — thus, making love, not war. "The 'Out of Africa' replacement theory has always been a big controversy," Templeton...

Oldest human skulls found By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff Three fossilised skulls unearthed in Ethiopia are said by scientists to be among the most important discoveries ever made in the search for the origin of humans. Herto skull: Dated at between 160,000 and 154,000 years old (Image copyright: David L. Brill) The crania of two adults and a child, all dated to be around 160,000 years old, were pulled out of sediments near a village called Herto in the Afar region in the east of the country. They are described as the oldest known fossils of modern...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — A 1.8-million-year-old jawbone and other fossils uncovered in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge have reignited a longstanding controversy about the family tree of humankind’s earliest ancestors. At the same time, the finds offer a new look at how and where early humans lived, according to a study in the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Abstract An interesting change is taking place in creationist circles in respect of the status of the taxon Homo erectus and its relationship to Homo sapiens sapiens. This development is paralleled by a similar change of direction in evolutionary thinking, and in both cases it seems likely that the impetus is being largely propelled by the discovery of the erectus specimen KNM - WT 15000 in Africa in 1984. This attitudinal shift has connotations for the whole topic of alleged evolution of human beings. In this brief paper it is proposed to track these amended attitudes and the implications for...

Washington—Despite making Samuel Alito’s wife cry, Senate Democrats plan a filibuster bloodbath. The unrelenting force—led by Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts—is largely said to be in defense of abortion and the federal judiciary. A meeting, tapped for Wednesday, January 18, 2005, will allow Democrats plenty of time to go through transcript records and dig up more dirt on Alito. The ease at which Alito cruised through confirmation hearings left Democrats and mainstream Americans reeling at the poor job Congress has done. Congress’ record has been mired as of late, allowing illegal phone tapping by a Bush administration that has...

An e-mail is bouncing around the Internet with photographs of alleged Bolivarian gunmen in an area of Caracas that appears to be 23 de Enero. Many appear to be teenagers, they are wearing Bolivarian t-shirts with Che Guevara's face super-imposed on Venezuela's national colors, and they are armed with Glock 9mm semi-automatic handguns. According to Pensamiento Militar Venezolano 2005, a strategic and tactical military defense document drafted under the direction of President Hugo Chávez, the core mission of these armed youths is to turn Caracas into a kill zone where escualidos will be hunted down systematically if the Chávez regime...

Ten Observations From the Iraq Elections: 1) The allure of democracy is more powerful than the threats of al-Qaeda Jihadists. 2) Freedom can defeat fear. 3) Having the media repeat your threats of a "blood bath" ad nauseum does not ensure such a scenario will come to pass. 4) Despite the claims of jaded U.S. Senators and European Leftists, Iraq is not a quagmire. 5) The Iraqis are braver than we are lead to believe. 6) No other entity but the United States (and her true allies) could have attained this momentous result. 7) The election is unlikely to lead...

I keep hearing the media refer to Columbine as "in what remains the deadliest school attack in U.S. history." This is not the case. This forgotten tragedy still holds the record as the deadliest school attack in U.S. history. A total of 38 children were killed, 7 teachers died and 61 others were severely injured. It was the worst school violence in our nation’s history. CUT The Bath Consolidated School has long since been torn down. Another school was built in its place and that school was eventually torn down also. A small park has been built where the original...

Bloodbath fear as Chechen suicide bombers hold 130 children hostage By Julius Strauss in Moscow (Filed: 02/09/2004) Russia was braced for a bloodbath last night after terrorists with Kalashnikov assault rifles and suicide bomb belts stormed a school and took up to 400 hostages, at least 130 of them children. The attackers, thought to number about 17 and be Chechens or their allies, struck as children lined up for the first day of the school year at Beslan, in the republic of Northern Ossetia, about 40 miles from the border with Chechnya. Between four and seven people, including two parents,...

Bloodbath fear as Aristide holds out By Marcus Warren in Port-au-Prince (Filed: 27/02/2004) The ex-priest ruling Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, last night defied appeals from France and rebels advancing on his capital to step down and avoid a bloodbath. Jean-Bertrand Aristide Famously stubborn and a survivor of coups and murder attempts in the past, Mr Aristide seemed determined to brazen out the double challenge to his power: civil war and the slow collapse of foreign support for his regime. Only savage street gangs, policemen reluctant to lay down their lives for the president and a California-based firm providing personal security now...

Will Bush exit – or escalate? Posted: November 19, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. "Watch what we do, not what we say," was the retort of Attorney General John Mitchell to reporters questioning Nixon's commitment to desegregation. Though mocked for cynicism, Mitchell was right. Even as Nixon's men were railing at the radical idiocy of forced busing for racial balance, they were desegregating six times as many schools as LBJ. Bush's tough talk, too, about staying the course – "We're not leaving until the job is done, pure and simple" – may not be a smokescreen...

A former military aide to General Norman Schwarzkopf has warned that a US-led war against Iraq could turn into a disaster that echoes the bloody debacle of Somalia rather than the relatively painless 1991 Gulf war. Retired Colonel Mike Turner, who also served as military planner with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, believes the Bush administration is ignoring potential risks – some that could cost the US dearly. "There's a saying in military circles: We always fight the last war. It means that too much focus on past enemy behaviour can easily lead to misjudging an enemy capability in...