Free Republic

Super-eruption: no problem?Tools found before and after a massive eruption hint at a hardy population. Katharine Sanderson Massive eruptions make it tough for life living under the ash cloud. A stash of ancient tools in India hints that life carried on as usual for humans living in the fall-out of a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago. Michael Petraglia, from the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues found the stone tools at a site called Jwalapuram, in Andhra Pradesh, southern India, above and below a thick layer of ash from the eruption of the Toba volcano in Indonesia —...

When the Wenchuan earthquake killed some 80,000 people in southwest China in May of last year, suspicion immediately fell on the reservoir behind the nearby Zipingpu Dam. Seismologists knew that several hundred million tons of water had filled the reservoir in the preceding few years and that either the water itself or its weight might have weakened a nearby fault and unleashed the quake. A new analysis finds that both scenarios are plausible, but further insight will require the cooperation of the Chinese government. Last December, an American researcher was the first to prominently report (Science, 16 January, p. 322)...

Within minutes, six-year-old Rubjit Thindal went from happily chatting in the back seat of the car to collapsing and dying in her father's arms. "If we had known it was so serious, we would have called 911,'' Kuldip Thindal, Rubjit's distraught mother, said in Punjabi yesterday. "She just had a stomach ache -- she wasn't even crying.'' Rubjit was pronounced dead at hospital barely 24 hours after showing signs of a fever. Later, doctors told her parents she had the H1N1 influenza virus. She is believed to be the youngest person in Canada with the virus to have died.

While Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has been described as “a grand narrative—a story of origins that would change the world”,1 ironically his book very pointedly avoided the question of the origin of life itself. This ought not be surprising. Darwin’s theory of the origin of species “by means of natural selection”2 presupposes self-reproduction, so can’t explain the origin of self-reproduction. Unfortunately, many proponents of evolution seem unaware of that. They don’t acknowledge that natural selection requires pre-existing life. As leading 20th century evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky lamented: ...

Many dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded just like mammals or birds, potentially explaining their extraordinary success before their extinction. For decades, scientists assumed that because dinosaurs resembled lizards, they were cold-blooded as well, their internal temperature rising and falling with the outside world. However, birds are warm-blooded, and the fact that birds seem to be descended from dinosaurs raises the question of whether their ancestors were as well. If dinosaurs were warm-blooded, they would have possessed the potential for athletic abilities rivaling those of mammals and birds. They could have survived in colder habitats that would kill cold-blooded creatures, such...

(BRONX, NY) — A team led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has found a clear link between living to 100 and inheriting a hyperactive version of an enzyme that rebuilds telomeres — the tip ends of chromosomes. The findings appear in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Telomeres play crucial roles in aging, cancer and other biological processes. Their importance was recognized last month, when three scientists were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for determining the structure of telomeres and discovering how they protect...

Nov 10, 2009 — There’s a move on to get Darwin’s ideas taught to tots. Britain is giving a “birthday present to Darwin,” wrote Andrew Copson for The Guardian, in the form of national curriculum for primary schools that will mention evolution for the first time – and prohibit teaching of creationism or intelligent design in science lessons. The addition of evolution to elementary school curriculum was in response to a letter promoted by the British Humanist Association and signed by “scientists and experts.” Copson was obviously delighted with what he perceived as a long-overdue smackdown against intelligent design –...

Last spring Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn asked Al Gore during a House hearing if his investments in green energy meant he would benefit personally from cap and trade. "If you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don't know me," Mr. Gore responded (and, yes, according to two reporters present, he sighed). Mr. Gore is quite right that his arguments should be judged on their merits, not on his investments. He's wrong to think his investments are irrelevant, and, even more, that sincerity is dispositive of anything....

Carrying the most powerful telescopic camera ever flown to another planet, the satellite was launched in August 2005. Older observer satellites flown on previous missions to space were able to identify space objects no smaller than a London bus. But the state-of-the-art camera on-board Orbiter can spot something the size of a dinner table

Austrian archaeologists have found a Babylonian seal in Egypt that confirms contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos during the second millennium B.C. Irene Forstner-Müller, the head of the Austrian Archaeological Institute's (ÖAI) branch office in Cairo, said today (Thurs) the find had occurred at the site of the ancient town of Avaris near what is today the city of Tell el-Dab'a in the eastern Nile delta. The Hyksos conquered Egypt and reigned there from 1640 to 1530 B.C. She said a recently-discovered cuneiform tablet had led archaeologists to suspect there had been contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos....

Chinese challenge to 'out of Africa' theory 00:01 03 November 2009 by Phil McKenna The discovery of an early human fossil in southern China may challenge the commonly held idea that modern humans originated out of Africa. Jin Changzhu and colleagues of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, announced to Chinese media last week that they have uncovered a 110,000-year-old putative Homo sapiens jawbone from a cave in southern China's Guangxi province.

A group of engineers working on a novel manufacturing technique at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., have come up with a new twist on the popular old saying about dreaming and doing: "If you can slice it, we can build it." That's because layers mean everything to the environmentally-friendly construction process called Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication, or EBF3, and its operation sounds like something straight out of science fiction. "You start with a drawing of the part you want to build, you push a button, and out comes the part," said Karen Taminger, the technology lead for the...

When history imitates game show . . . Those old enough to remember TV in the late 1950s through the 60s will recall a delightful game show, “To Tell the Truth.� As a kid I fondly recall trying to figure out along with the celebrity panelists which of the three contestants was the “real� person to be identified. It was a challenging game; the three contestants would all introduce themselves as “I am Mr./Miss /Mrs. [the generic Ms. hadn't come along yet] X� and, after the announcer read a brief description of the featured guest, the panelists would begin...

The "chocolate cure" for emotional stress is getting new support from a clinical trial published online in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. It found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in the bodies of people feeling highly stressed. Everyone's favorite treat also partially corrected other stress-related biochemical imbalances. Sunil Kochhar and colleagues note growing scientific evidence that antioxidants and other beneficial substances in dark chocolate may reduce risk factors for heart disease and other physical conditions. Studies also suggest that chocolate may ease emotional stress....

A salamander allegedly “18 million years old” is the latest fossil to produce astonishingly well preserved soft tissue. This time, it’s muscle tissue, and it is supposedly the most pristine example yet. Background—the “dinosaur connection”...

Four thousand years ago, a government bureaucrat in Mesopotamia jotted down a tally of slave laborers on a clay tablet. The bureaucrat left behind the count in wedge-shaped symbols that proved hard to fully decipher with the naked eye. Until now. Researchers at the University of Southern California's West Semitic Research Project have helped uncover its hidden narrative with the aid of lighting and imaging techniques that are credited with revolutionizing the study of ancient texts. Over the last three decades, the USC project has produced thousands of crisp images of inscriptions and other artifacts from biblical Israel and other...

Nov 10, 2009 — When the Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, Dorothee Hubner first dared to think, “Are we allowed to leave and finally be free?” Her story and that of her parents Gerhard and Gertraude, scientists trapped in East Germany, was told by Andrew Curry, a freelance writer, in Science.[1] Dorothee was 23 years old in 1989. Her parents, also biochemists, “had spent decades struggling to do research in East Germany without compromising their personal ideals with allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.” By not pledging allegiance to the ruling Communist Party, the Hubners faced a life of...

Just in time for the 2012 craze, CNN reports on a brand new massive Mayan pyramid discovery, including an amazing stone frieze showing the Maya sacred creation story, the Popol Vuh: World’s Largest Myran Pyramid Discovered VIDEO

Archaeologists have discovered what they think are ruins of an Aztec pyramid razed by vengeful Spanish conquerors in what is now one of Mexico City's most crime-ridden districts. Construction workers unearthed ancient walls in the busy Iztapalapa neighbourhood in June, and government archaeologists said on Wednesday they believe they may be part of the main pyramid of the Aztec city, destroyed by conquistador Hernan Cortes in the 16th century. Iztapalapa, now infamous for violent crime and drug dealing, has grown into a sprawling, poor district of the capital, obscuring the ruins. "We knew the general location but couldn't explore because...

Scattered across the beaches of Southeast Alaska, and indeed along the entire Northwest Pacific coast from Kodiak to the Columbia River, are intensely staring eyes, totemic animals and geometric patterns carved into boulders and bedrock. These mysterious petroglyphs, carvings in stone, raise questions that have perplexed archeologists and casual observers for well over a century. Most of those questions remain unanswered and may ultimately be unanswerable. Perhaps because of these mysteries, petroglyphs arouse fascination in anyone fortunate enough to see them, particularly if they are still embedded in their original location. Questions about petroglyphs-their age, purpose, makers and method of...

The legend of the lost Persian army has survived over two and a half millennia - despite a blatant lack of hard evidence. But now two Italian experts believe they have found its remains. Twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni uncovered hundreds of human bones, weapons and jewelery in the Sahara desert, west Egypt, that they believe belonged to the 50,000-strong army.

"It sounds yucky, but it may be well worth doing if it's going to lead to a cure for something horrible," said Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, and a member of the group conducting the study. At a media briefing in London, Lovell-Badge said there were two main types of experiments: altering an animal's genes by adding human DNA or replacing a specific animal sequence with its human counterpart. Several years ago, human genes were added to a mouse to create a model of Down's syndrome for scientists to study how the...

Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species” in 1859. There he presented the classic formulation of his theory of evolution. Lady Ashley, reacting to the theory at the time, remarked, "Let's hope that it's not true; but if it is true, let's hope that it doesn't become widely known." Lady Ashley's second hope has failed: Darwin's theory is everywhere and has now become textbook orthodoxy. This year, universities around the globe are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin's “Origin of Species” as well as the 200th anniversary of his birth. But what about Lady Ashley's hope that Darwin's theory is...

This topic forces us to assess the relationship between science and spirituality: is the invisible spiritual realm generated from the material or should it be considered as having a separate existence? Is religion a phenomenon that can ultimately be explained by science in naturalistic ways, or does religion represent a dimension of reality that cannot be directly probed by the methodologies of science? In an essay in Science, Elizabeth Culotta writes: ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent. In other words, a biological specimen determined by traditional DNA testing to be 100,000 years old may actually be 200,000 to 600,000 years old, researchers suggest in a new report in Trends in Genetics, a professional journal. The findings raise doubts about the accuracy of many evolutionary rates based on conventional types of genetic analysis. “Some...

Probably you have heard the expression, ‘Seeing is believing’, but is that always true? In fact, quite often it’s the other way around: ‘Believing is seeing’. This is true of geology, for example. Geological evidence does not speak for itself, and so it must always be interpreted. And how we interpret that evidence is always influenced by our beliefs. A good example of this is found on a roadside interpretive sign near the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in central Oregon. This is where the John Day River flows through a water gap[1] called...

Former Nature editor Philip Ball once commented that ‘there is no assembly plant so delicate, versatile and adaptive as the cell” (1). Emeritus Professor Theodore Brown chose to wax metaphorical by likening the cell to a fully-fledged factory, with its own complex functional relationships and interactions akin to what we observe in our own manufacturing facilities (2). In recent years the seemingly intractable problem of explaining how the first cell came into existence through chance events, otherwise known as the ‘Chance Hypothesis’, has become more acute than ever as scientists have begun to realize that a minimum suite of functional...

Herodotus wrote of a 50,000-man strong army that set out on foot into the Egyptian desert in 525 B.C. and was never heard from again ... until today.A pair of Italian archaeologists have uncovered bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert. Twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni are hopeful that they've finally found the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Cambyses II and his armied were buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C. He wrote, "a wind...

NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. Pyrimidine is a ring-shaped molecule made up of carbon and nitrogen and is the basic structure for uracil, part of a genetic code found in ribonucleic acid (RNA). RNA is central to protein synthesis, but has many other roles. "We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory...

Sir Ambrose Fleming: Father of Modern Electronics --snip-- Sir John Ambrose Fleming was a leader in the electronics revolution that changed the world. As a professor at a major university, he carefully researched the evidence for Darwinism, concluding that the theory is not supported by science. He also influenced hundreds of students to evaluate the evidence in science for Darwinism. An outstanding scientist and creationist, he played a significant role in the development and maturation of the early creation movement. As Travers and Muhr wrote, he "had an unusually long and active life," and his life changed the world as...

Nov 6, 2009 — More soft tissue has been found in a fossil – this time in a salamander said to be 18 million years old.  The article on PhysOrg called it “the highest quality soft tissue preservation ever documented in the fossil record.” Unlike the previous discoveries of fossil tissue inside bone or amber, the recognizable sinewy muscle tissue was found tucked inside the body of the animal.  “The scientists claim that their discovery is unequivocal evidence that high-fidelity organic preservation of extremely decay prone soft tissues is more common in the fossil record - the only physical record...

The Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, which opened its doors earlier this year, boasts this country’s second-largest set of displayed dinosaur remains. The record is still held by the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. Both are located in Montana near a rich cache of world-famous fossils. The Glendive Museum stands apart, however, in that it presents dinosaurs as having been drowned and their remains preserved in the massive worldwide flood described in the Bible. This view has prompted reactionary comments from mainstream scientists ...

New research into Jupiter's fourth largest moon has revealed that the orbiting body contains enough oxygen to support complex, Earth-like lifeforms. Though it has long been known that Europa has an oxygen-rich oceanic environment, this latest research indicates that the actual oxygen level found in the moon's copious bodies of water is up to 100 times greater than previously imagined. With oxygen being a key component for life as we know it, this discovery no doubt has scientists imagining adorable Spore-style critters swimming the frigid Europan waves, before running headlong into the cruel wall of reality. As PhysOrg explains, though...

Good neighborhoods provide families a lot of protection, but even the best of communities remain vulnerable to the threat of criminals invading their homes. Our human bodies are also vulnerable to foreign invaders such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. But when these infection-causing microbes break in where they don't belong, they face a serious defense force, eventually to be caught and destroyed by a highly trained, cell-sized army equipped with a sophisticated array of weaponry. That security force is called the human immune system. Designed with amazingly dynamic communication networks that pass information back and forth between hundreds of...

Sooner or later, students of abiogenesis will encounter Darwin's 1871 letter to Joseph Hooker with his speculations on the spontaneous generation of life. He was returning some pamphlets which triggered the reaction: "I am always delighted to see a word in favour of Pangenesis, which some day, I believe, will have a resurrection." The next paragraph has his "big if" dream: ...

10 Ways Darwin Got It Wrong This year marks the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birthday and, coincidentally, 150 years since the publication of his book On the Origin of Species. One of the most influential books in modern history, it has helped shape philosophy, biology, sociology and religion in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. But both Darwin's theory and his book are doomed by major flaws. by Mario Seiglie Was Charles Darwin right about his theory? More importantly, how vital is it to find out the correct answer? Unlike other scientific theories, Darwinian evolution touches not only science but...

An archaeologist says excavations in southern Georgia have turned up beads, metal tools and other artifacts that may pinpoint part of the elusive trail of the 16th-century Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. Dennis Blanton of the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta was scheduled to present his findings Thursday to the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Mobile, Ala. Excavations since 2006 in rural Telfair County uncovered remains of an Indian settlement along with nine pea-sized glass beads and six metal objects, including three iron tools and a silver pendant. Blanton says the artifacts are consistent with items Spanish explorers traded...

Hearing the heartbeat of the Earth Getting the vision thing right is important for technology announcements and HP has it nailed, twinning a great vision with advances in its sensing technology. Here's Peter Hartwell, a senior researcher at HP Labs: "With a trillion sensors embedded in the environment, all connected by computing systems, software and services, it will be possible to hear the heartbeat of the Earth, impacting human interaction with the globe as profoundly as the Internet has revolutionised communication." Okay Peter, we're paying attention now. The meat of this concerns digital MEMS (micro-electrical-mechanical system) - accelerometers that signal...

Scene 1: The White House Rose Garden. The President of the United States is standing before a crowd of amateur astronomers, students and teachers, with his science adviser by his side. In front of him: a telescope. The president bends down and presses his eye to the eyepiece. Flashbulbs pop. Scene 2: Kennedy Space Center. The Ares 1-X rocket sits on the launch pad, ready for its first test flight. More than 300-feet tall but fewer than 20 feet in diameter, it looks as precarious as a flying chopstick, but tomorrow's astronauts might ride a rocket like this one to...

Back in 1980 the US space programme was in the doldrums. Apollo was fading into history and there hadn't been a US astronaut in space for five years. The quirky space shuttle, much diminished from its initial vision, was still waiting to make its maiden flight. But that fall came Cosmos, a revolutionary documentary series with a compelling host. Both the television universe and the real one have never been quite the same. Carl Sagan, by equal measure professorial and childlike, offered space enthusiasts a new paradigm. Buck Rogers was out; refined and groovy cosmic citizen was in. Here was...

Glaciers crowning Africa's tallest mountain could disappear within decades. Remnant of the Eastern Ice Field as seen 2000. This particular chunk of ice has now disappeared.Lonnie G. Thompson The snows of Kilimanjaro are rapidly disappearing and will be gone by 2033, predicts the most detailed analysis yet of the iconic glaciers gracing Africa's highest peak.In addition to shrinking in area, Kilimanjaro's glaciers are thinning from the top down, says Ohio State University's Lonnie Thompson, lead author of the new study. "They're being decapitated," he says. "In fact, they're probably not really glaciers anymore. They're remnants of another climate."In 2000, Thompson...

Scientists have developed an atlas of the bacteria that live in different regions of the human body. Some of the microbes help keep us healthy by playing a key role in physiological functions. The University of Colorado at Boulder team found unexpectedly wide variations in bacterial communities from person to person. The researchers hope their work, published in Science Express, will eventually aid clinical research. They say that it might one day be possible to identify sites on the human body where transplants of specific microbes could benefit health. The study was based on an intensive analysis of the bacteria...

Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress Evolutionary-based research always begins with the inaccurate and unscientific presupposition that the Theory of Evolution, i.e. the Big Bang, the spontaneous generation of life, and common descent, is true. Due to this systemic problem, scientific discovery and progress is severely hampered, not to mention the hundreds of millions of research dollars that are squandered every year. In a time in which almost ANY alternative thought is given a platform, the evolution industry is silencing dissenting scientific evidence, even when it’s from fellow evolutionists! See the growing list of...

Fossilization occurs rapidly when the conditions are right. The conditions necessary for lithification of soft tissue give clues to unlock the history of a fossil deposit. Experiments show that microbes are involved in the mineralization of soft tissue. By decaying flesh they affect the acidity of the environment and release ions necessary for its mineralization. Fossilization in apatite seems to require associated death and decay. In the Jurassic Oxford Clay Formation in England, apatite preserved the soft tissue of many squid-like animals, probably after a mass mortality event occurred in a zone of already high phosphate levels from decaying carcasses....

Archaeologists claim to have found the oldest known artefact in the Americas, a scraper-like tool in an Oregon cave that dates back 14,230 years.

The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation. The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident,...

When scientists search the heavens for habitable worlds beyond Earth, they don't necessarily know what to look for. A new study has found that the most probable place to find intelligent life in the galaxy is around stars with roughly the mass of the sun, and surface temperatures between 5,300 and 6,000 Kelvin (9,100 and 10,300 degrees Fahrenheit) - in fact, stars very similar to our own sun.

In August 2009, retired University of Liverpool marine biologist Donald Williamson officially challenged the standard Darwinian interpretation of caterpillar origins. His paper was fast-tracked to publication by a “high-placed advocate,”[1] but shortly afterward his ideas were rebutted in the very same journal. While this back-and-forth exchange has sparked intense criticism over the submission and review processes that were used, the situation also reveals core problems with broad-scale evolution...

The ideal of the coolly rational scientific observer, completely independent, free of all preconceived theories, prior philosophical, ethical and religious commitments, doing investigations and coming to dispassionate, unbiased conclusions that constitute truth, is nowadays regarded by serious philosophers of science (and, indeed, most scientists) as a simplistic myth...

TAU's man/machine interface is essential link in groundbreaking prosthetic handIn one sense, our hands define our humanity. Our opposable thumbs and our hands' unique structure allow us to write, paint, and play the piano. Those who lose their hands as a result of accident, conflict or disease often feel they've lost more than mere utility. A new invention from Tel Aviv University researchers may change that. Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand of TAU's Department of Engineering, working with a team of European Union scientists, has successfully wired a state-of-the-art artificial hand to existing nerve endings in the stump of a severed arm....