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COCONUT ISLAND, Hawaii (AP) — On a moonless summer night in Hawaii, krill, fish and crabs swirl through a beam of light as two researchers peer into the water above a vibrant reef. Minutes later, like clockwork, they see eggs and sperm from spawning coral drifting past their boat. They scoop up the fishy-smelling blobs and put them in test tubes. In this Darwinian experiment, the scientists are trying to speed up coral’s evolutionary clock to breed “super corals” that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. For the past five years, the researchers have been conducting experiments to...

In 2010, scientists unearthed an ivory pendant from an abandoned Polish cave. Punctured with patterns reminiscent of moon cycles and mathematics, the artifact's origins eluded archaeologists -- until now. An international team of researchers just declared the relic to be 41,500 years old. That makes it the earliest piece of ornate jewelry ever found in Eurasia, and a wonderful reminder that art is timeless. Images and details of the discovery were published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. But beyond its aesthetic value, this ancient pendant also marks the first proof of post-Neanderthal civilization in the Polish region...

A recent study claims that a majority (54%) of Americans now accept as true the statement “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.”1 Unfortunately, given the increased secularization of American society, this increased acceptance of evolution may well be real. Nevertheless, it’s remarkable that, despite decades of attempts by the scientific establishment and popular culture to convince Americans of human evolution, 46% of Americans still reject it! Not too surprisingly, evolutionists attribute this apparent increase in acceptance of human evolution to higher levels of education and scientific literacy. In their minds, it is only...

...Neanderthals in Europe were one of the last hominin species to succumb, dying out around 39,000 years ago. However, recent studies – outlined at a meeting of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution earlier this year – have shown that this takeover by Homo sapiens was not straightforward. On several occasions, groups of early settlers perished as they moved into the continent... ...In one study, international researchers re-examined a partial skull and skeleton of a woman found in the Zlatý Kůň cave in the Czech Republic. Originally thought to have been 15,000 years old, this new analysis...

Some are hailing him a progressive “Fairy Godfather” of sorts — but others think he’s just plain desecrating Disney classics. A concerned dad is stirring the pot online after releasing a series of TikTok clips that show him editing out “gender stereotypes” in his daughter’s Disney Princess books. The father — who goes by @dcaspers on the platform — uploaded the “woke” makeovers last year, but they’ve recently gone viral, racking up millions of views. “Changing tomorrow starts today,” reads the caption to one of the director’s cuts, which currently boasts nearly 3 million views.

... The chimpanzee is our closest living relative in evolutionary terms and research suggests our kinship derives from a common ancestor. About five to six million years ago, our evolutionary paths separated, leading to the chimpanzee of today, and Homo Sapiens, humankind in the 21st century. In a new study, stem cell researchers at Lund examined what it is in our DNA that makes human and chimpanzee brains different -- and they have found answers. "Instead of studying living humans and chimpanzees, we used stem cells grown in a lab. The stem cells were reprogrammed from skin cells by our...

The study, led by scientists at the University of Bath and including collaborators from Bristol, Cambridge and Germany, used fossils and analysed genetic differences between modern snakes to reconstruct snake evolution. The analyses helped to pinpoint the time that modern snakes evolved.Their results show that all living snakes trace back to just a handful of species that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, the same extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.The authors argue that the ability of snakes to shelter underground and go for long periods without food helped them survive the destructive effects of the impact. In...

Turkish Education Minister İsmet Yılmaz has said a new national school curriculum will exclude evolution theory but will include the concept of jihad, or holy war, as part of Islamic law in textbooks. Speaking during a press conference to introduce the new school curriculum in Ankara on Tuesday, Yılmaz said: “Jihad is an element in our religion; it is in our religion… The duty of the Education Ministry is to teach every deserving concept correctly. It is also our job to correct things that are wrongly perceived, seen or taught.” {..snip..}

As far as Lower Paleolithic archaeology goes, this is quite the haul: Experts have uncovered a record 98 elephant-bone tools at a site dating back some 400,000 years. This discovery could change our thinking on how some of the early humans – such as Neanderthals – fashioned implements like these. The bones were collected from a place called Castel di Guido, close to modern-day Rome. In the dim and distant past, it was a popular watering hole for the now-extinct straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), and it looks as though a substantial number of the animals died there too. This newly...

“The fact that all organisms are nearly equally fit has profound implications for the evolution and persistence of life on Earth,” said James H. Brown, a physiological ecologist at the University of New Mexico, referring to a “New Evolutionary Law” proposed by evolutionary theorist and palaeobiology pioneer, Leigh Van Valen. Van Valen argued that evidence from fossil record data shows that the probability of extinction within any group remains es­sentially constant through time. Van Valen described this phenomenon as “The Red Queen Hypothesis”. The first hypothesis , which he labeled the law of constant extinction states that the probability of...

Types of venom fangs in snakes: Rear fangs (crab-eating water snake), fixed front fangs (taipan), and hinged front fangs (Gaboon viper); fangs highlighted in redEver wondered how deadly snakes evolved their fangs? The answer lies in particular microscopic features of their teeth, research led by Flinders University and the South Australian Museum suggests. "It's always been a mystery why fangs have evolved so many times in snakes, but rarely in other reptiles. Our study answers this, showing how easy it is for normal snake teeth to turn into hypodermic needles," says lead author Dr. Alessandro Palci, from Flinders University.Of...

Dogs really are “man’s best friend” and “get” humans in a way other animals simply can’t relate to. Sorry “Game of Thrones” fans, a new study finds even the dog’s closest relatives — wolf pups — don’t gel with people the same way. Researchers from Duke University say 14,000 years of domestication plays a big part in this. In fact, man’s best friend has actually evolved to understand human gestures and look to humans for help in a way that no other animals do. Study authors, who compared wolf pups raised by humans to dogs who had barely any contact...

Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov once said, “Modern people believe this: man descended from apes. Therefore, let us love one another.” Of course, Solovyov made his statement in a mocking fashion. Despite attempts from secular philosophers and ethicists who try to assert that an evolutionary-based altruism instinct or other such thing impels us to do good to others, Solovyov is right – you can’t link traditional evolutionary teaching and objective morality together. And yet, perhaps more than ever in the history of humanity, there is widespread belief in the equal treatment of others; that we should be working for the betterment...

After a year of lockdown, museums, libraries and bookstores across America are reopening. This cultural reawakening’s beginning coincided with both the Juneteenth holiday and the one-year anniversary of the one of the largest protests in American history against racial injustice. As bookstores reopen, many are organizing displays of children's books that celebrate Black history. What you won’t find in even the biggest collections of books is the story of the dark-skinned early people who launched human civilization.

On Evolution and Racism, Scientific American Goes to War Against the TruthGiven evolution’s racist baggage, you might think the theory’s proponents would be somewhat abashed to accuse the critics of Darwin of “white supremacy.” Apparently not. Writing in Scientific American, Allison Hopper goes there: “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy.” Who is Allison Hopper? She is a white lady, a “filmmaker and designer with a master’s degree in educational design from New York University. Early in her career, she worked on PBS documentaries.” Ms. Hopper “has presented on evolution at the Big History Conference in Amsterdam and...

It's a no-holds-barred attack on Christianity to advance the opposing worldview, and if that means smearing as racist a — *checks notes* — time-tested historical account in which a divine Middle Eastern man is the central figure, so be it.“Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy” is Scientific American’s not-so-subtle way of saying this synonymous phrase: “The Bible is racist.”It would be easy to dismiss the whole article as record-setting idiocy or editorial catfishing. After all, what editor at a magazine with “scientific” in the name green-lights an article arguing that the religion that worships a man born...

The discovery of a huge fossilised skull that was wrapped up and hidden in a Chinese well nearly 90 years ago has forced scientists to rewrite the story of human evolution. Analysis of the remains has revealed a new branch of the human family tree that points to a previously unknown sister group more closely related to modern humans than the Neanderthals. The extraordinary fossil has been named a new human species, Homo longi or “Dragon man”, by Chinese researchers, although other experts are more cautious about the designation. “I think this is one of the most important finds of...

... The study, published on May 5 in the journal Science Advances, combines archaeological evidence -- dense clusters of stone artifacts dating as far back as 92,000 years ago -- with paleoenvironmental data on the northern shores of Lake Malawi in eastern Africa to document that early humans were ecosystem engineers. They used fire in a way that prevented regrowth of the region's forests, creating a sprawling bushland that exists today. ... "This is the earliest evidence I have seen of humans fundamentally transforming their ecosystem with fire," said Jessica Thompson, assistant professor of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts...

JAG Writes: You have no Empirical Evidence that your original ancestor was at one time a dead one-celled speck that lived in the Primordial Slime and then later begin to pulsate with life. Pulsate , , just a slight boom , , boom , , boom , , , I mean the one-celled speck was not always alive --so there was a time when Old One-Cell was as dead as a door nail , , , , , but , , , , , , lo and behold , , , , , ,Old One Cell at some point became...

Back in January, at a meeting held at the Royal Society in London, a team of scientists and investors announced the largest prize ever offered to solve a scientific mystery. Organized by engineer and business consultant Perry Marshall, the whopping prize of $10 million (ten times the Nobel Prize payout) will be given to any person or team who can “arrange for a digital communication system to emerge or self-evolve without…explicitly designing the system.” The point of the contest is to learn where the genetic code came from and how it became the basis for all life. The winning experiment,...