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BURBANK, Calif. - John Edwards (news - web sites) has a theory about what was hidden underneath an unusual wrinkle that appeared on the back of President Bush (news - web sites)'s suit jacket during his first debate with John Kerry (news - web sites). "I think it was his battery," a grinning Edwards told Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" on Tuesday. "I think tomorrow, before the debate, John Kerry ought to pat him down," Edwards said, referring to the final Bush-Kerry matchup, scheduled for Wednesday in Arizona. The Democratic vice presidential nominee, making his second appearance on...

Engineering's reliability theory explains human agingCHILDHOOD IS A SPECIAL TIME INDEED. If only we could maintain our body functions as they are at age 10, we could expect to live about 5000 years on average. Unfortunately, from age 11 on, it's all downhill! The problem is that our bodies deteriorate with age. For most of our lives, the risk of death is increasing exponentially, doubling every eight years. So, why do we fall apart, and what can we do about it?Many scientists now believe that, for the first time in human history, we have developed a sophisticated enough understanding of...

If there is a freeper who is a musicologist or accomplished music theorist, I have a question. Please freepmail me. I do not wish to fill up the public board with my crackpot questions. I'm an engineer; neither read nor play; thus I need schooling. Thanks-- Boris

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist. Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves. Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly. "I am...

The theory of evolution requires unfathomable lengths of time – eons ... billions and billions of years. Even with all that time, it's still hard to imagine how complex biochemicals such as hemoglobin or chlorophyll self assembled in the primordial goo. But to those of us who question the process, the answer is always the same. Time. More time than you can grasp – timespans so vast that anything is possible, even chance combinations of random chemicals to form the stunning complexities of reproducing life. Modern physics is now considering a theory that could throw into confusion virtually all of...

Jan. 27, 2004 — In a prehistoric battle for survival, Neanderthals had to compete against modern humans and were wiped off the face of the Earth, according to a new study on life in Europe from 60,000 to 25,000 years ago. The findings, compiled by 30 scientists, were based on extensive data from sediment cores, archaeological artifacts such as fossils and tools, radiometric dating, and climate models. The collected information was part of a project known as Stage 3, which refers to the time period analyzed. The number three also seems significant in terms of why the Neanderthals became extinct....

New twist on out-of-Africa theory Judy Skatssoon ABC Science Online Wednesday, 14 July 2004 Homo erectus, the species thought to be the first to leave Africa for Eurasia in the out-of-Africa model of human origin (Image: Science) Early humans made love, not war, according to new DNA analysis presented at a genetics conference that gives a new twist on the out-of-Africa hypothesis of human origins. U.S. researcher Professor Alan Templeton of Washington University, St Louis, debunks the prevailing version of the out-of-Africa hypothesis, which says early humans migrated from Africa and wiped out Eurasian populations. Instead, they bred, he told...

According to new research led by a University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicist, a giant asteroid that hit the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago probably incinerated all the large dinosaurs that were alive at the time in only a few hours, and only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive. The six-mile-in-diameter asteroid is thought to have hit Chicxulub in the Yucatan, striking with the energy of 100 million megatons of TNT, said chief author and Researcher Doug Robertson of the department of geological sciences and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental...

In her June 1 Viewpoints column, Lisa Peters expressed her frustration with evolution not being discussed enough in schools. I couldn't agree more. As a high school teacher, I would love to see elementary, middle and high school students do any of the following: • Let's discuss the difference between evidence and interpretations of evidence — e.g., the evidence of common features (limbs or DNA). Evolution explains that common features are caused by a common origin. But other scientists believe that common features may be the result of a common design, with the same effective design used repeatedly. Wheels appear...

These are three of the dogmas which we are endoctrinated nowadays in school : #1 - origins of the current forms life forms: by evolution from previous forms #2 - appearance of Homo Sapiens (from encarta): The oldest known fossils that possess skeletal features typical of modern humans date from between 130,000 and 90,000 years ago. #3 - last ice age (from encarta): the most recent ice age, the Pleistocene Epoch, lasted from about 1.6 million years to 10,000 years before present ... when temperatures were 5° to 7° C cooler than today. #1 and #2 are part of current...

Speaking Ill of the Dead--The Media Treatment of Nick Berg and Pat TillmanPosted by Doc Farmer Wednesday, May 19, 2004 My column last week was written before the news about the horrific slaughter of Nick Berg, an innocent American contractor. I had commented on the stupidity and cowardice of the mainstream (see also: lib/dem/soc/commie) media, their fear of us doing anything remotely discomforting in this, or any, war. However, Mr. Berg’s tragic demise brought into focus the true problem of the media. Their complicity with the enemies of America. I’ve seen the video. I made a point to watch it....

BILLINGS, Mont. - Scientists at Montana State University in Bozeman say they have discovered a heat-loving, acid-dwelling virus that could help provide a link to ancient life on Earth. The virus found in Yellowstone National Park could help to understand a common ancestor that scientists believe was present before life split into forms such as bacteria, heat-loving organisms and the building blocks that led to plants and animals, researchers said. "It's a clue that helps you say, `Yeah, there probably was a common ancestor at some point or sets of ancestors,'" said George Rice, one of the MSU scientists who...

Scientists probing a vast crater off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula questioned a popular theory about dinosaurs on Monday, saying the collision that formed the crater happened too far back in time to have caused their extinction by itself. Much evidence points to the idea that an asteroid or comet gouged the Earth around 65 million years ago, triggering volcanic and climate changes that eventually wiped out the dinosaurs. When the huge, mostly underwater crater was found off Yucatan, it seemed the perfect candidate. "Since the early 1990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been hailed as the smoking gun that...

Scientists may have destroyed the well-established theory that a single, massive asteroid strike killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. New data suggests the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, supposedly created by the collision, predates the extinction of the dinosaurs by about 300,000 years. The controversy over what killed the dinosaurs may run and run The authors say this impact did not wipe out the creatures, rather two or more collisions could have been responsible. The report is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An international group of scientists led by Professor Gerta Keller, of Princeton University,...

Washington-AP -- New research casts doubt on the theory that a single asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Scientists have often pointed to a crater in Mexico as the asteroid's impact point. But Princeton University researchers say the impact that caused the crater occurred 300-thousand years before the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 (m) million years ago. A report appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. At least one scientist doubts the group's findings. Richard Norris of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography says the Princeton researchers were working with incorrect site data.

A completely new kind of computer is rising on the technology horizon, and it has just reached a significant milestone.  A quantum computer, a device first suggested decades ago by Richard Feynman and others, has been constructed by Isaac Chuang and his coworkers at IBM?s Almaden Research Center in California.  The prototype quantum computer uses entangled nuclear spins for storage and has a capacity of seven ?qubits?, a term that will be discussed below.  Using a quantum-computing algorithm developed by AT&T's Peter Schor in 1995, this quantum computer has factored the number 15 into its prime- factors, 3 and...

<p>British archaeologists believed they have finally located the long-lost remnants of HMS Beagle, the ship which took Charles Darwin on the voyage during which he formulated the theory of evolution, a report says.</p> <p>The fate of the Beagle, which carried Darwin for five years from 1851, has remained a mystery for more than a century.</p>

A n old joke used to ask, Where are the last bastions of Marxism? Answer: the Kremlin and the Duke University English department. But now that the Soviet Union has dissolved, the last defenders of Karl Marx's ideas may indeed reside on a pretty, Gothic-style campus in the pinewoods of North Carolina. For literary traditionalists, the riddle is apropos. They have long bemoaned the effete nature of postmodern literary theory, calling it as hopelessly out of touch with both reality and literature as was Lenin with real-life economics. But theory's impact on the study of literature in the US has...

DARBY – The push to broaden the Darby [Montana] science curriculum and encourage teachers to challenge evolution as a biological origin isn’t over. Countering a proposal to include biological origin theories other than evolution in science class, opponents Wednesday will argue to maintain the long-established theory of evolution as the genesis of biology. Sponsored by the Ravalli County Citizens for Science, the public meeting Wednesday at the Darby Junior High gymnasium at 7 p.m. will include a presentation by Allan Gishlick of the National Center for Science Education. With a resolution on the table that would change school policy and...

'Indonesia Jones' theory for Africa Rory Carroll in Cape Town Monday January 12, 2004 The Guardian (UK) They were Africa's Vikings. Tough, daring voyagers who sailed thousands of miles to pluck riches from unmapped lands known today as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Nigeria. Centuries before Europeans, mariners from Indonesia raided and traded across the continent, filling their vessels with gold and silver for the princes of Java and Sumatra. In return they gave Africa the secrets of iron and bronze, exotic plants such as banana and yams, and a new culture enriched with music, architecture and spirituality. And then...