Science & Nature
No men OR women needed: Scientists create sperm and eggs from stem cells
From the Daily Mail… Human eggs and sperm have been grown in the laboratory in research which could change the face of parenthood. It paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their own. But it raises a number of moral and... »
This Is Your Brain Without Dad
From the Wall Street Journal Online: Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops. German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes... »
“The God Delusion” Increases Brain Functioning — Even for Atheists
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns boost their brain power through meditation and prayer, but even atheists can enjoy the mental benefits that believers derive from faith, according to a popular neuroscience author. “In essence, when you think about the really big questions in life — be they religious, scientific or psychological —... »
Ink found in Jurassic-era squid
“It is difficult to imagine how you can have something as soft and sloppy as an ink sac fossilised in three dimension, still black, and inside a rock that is 150 million years old.” The find was made at a site which was first excavated in Victorian times where thousands of Jurassic fossils with preserved... »
Swearing: The New Analgesic
Mike LaSalle’s latest article on PJM “It has been said that he who was first to abuse his fellow-man instead of knocking out his brains without a word, laid thereby the basis of civilization”. John Hughlings Jackson, Neurologist, 1879. Whether for social bonding, pain reduction, or ritual, “the main purpose of swearing,” wrote Dr. Jay... »
Neanderthals Likely Didn’t Like Brussels Sprouts
Spanish researchers say they’re a step closer to resolving a “mystery of evolution” — why some people like Brussels sprouts but others hate them. They have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years... »
US Science Czar John Holdren: A Mask of Dr. Mengele?
In 1977, the authors of Ecoscience, a textbook on environmental issues and population control, endorsed a cornucopia of policies to address the overpopulation crisis and to reduce human fertility. Their recommendations included forced abortions, forced sterilizations, involuntary removal of children from families of limited means, government-issued licenses as a requirement to have children, and... »
Tipler: Humans and Their CO2 Save the Planet!
As the Senate considers the fate of the cap-and-trade bill, we should consider what it means for more carbon dioxide to be added to the atmosphere, something the bill intends to prevent. Several million years ago, a disaster struck the terrestrial biosphere: there was a drastic reduction in the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere. The... »
Lie-Sci: When Science Lies to Itself
Most scientists are liberals, and like so many on the Left they think that a little lying to the public can’t be all bad. They are utterly wrong. When science becomes an official lie it starts to decay; you don’t know whom to believe any more. And if you can’t believe published... »
Artificial Brain Aids Cosmic Exploration
A technique based on how brain neurons behave could dramatically speed up computer simulations of the universe, said U.K. researchers. SOURCE ARTICLE ABSTRACT c/o arxiv.org Modelling the dusty universe I: Introducing the artificial neural network and first applications to luminosity and colour distributions Abstract: We introduce a new technique based on artificial neural networks which allows us... »
Study: swearing increases aggression, lessens pain
He suggests that swearing could have evolved as a way of raising aggression levels and reducing the feeling of pain to allow our ancestors to flee or fight back when attacked by predators. »
Crop Circles Blamed on Stoned Wallabies
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite.” »
House Democrats Pass Bill to Damage American Economy
Bill based on global warming hoax has passed in the House. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, Texas, said his office received “several thousand calls” from constituents who were “overwhelmingly, 8 or 9 to 1,” against the bill. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, Texas, said the bill would “make us a second-rate economic power”. »
NASA: Sun, not Man, Controls Climate Change
From the It’s About Time department: A study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth’s climate. »
Humphreys’ Cosmology: A Brief Summary
The study of cosmology can be difficult for the layman to follow, because the written works of astrophysicists and cosmologists are often heavily interspersed with advanced mathematical and technical explanations. However, I believe that every such (well-studied) scientist has a fundamental view of how the universe was formed, and a basically understandable explanation for various... »
Chicks really are good at math
Since the chicks could work with numbers up to five, and prior research suggests the limit for human newborns is three, it’s possible that chicks could beat babies if the two groups were pitted against each other in a math contest. »
Double Vision: Parsing Images That Trick Our Brain
Click this link and look at the picture and you see Albert Einstein. Now walk across the room. Suddenly, he morphs into Marilyn Monroe. Trippy, right? Aude Oliva, an associate professor of cognitive science at MIT, uses images like this one to study how our brains make sense of sight. Our eyes pick up resolutions... »
Accomodationism: The politics of Intelligent Design
It is flatly wrong to claim that it is only Biblical literalists who have a problem with evolution, or that the vast majority of religious denominations have made their peace with it. Biblical literalists are thin on the ground at the ID conferences I have attended. Many of them loathe the literalists for having... »
Steven Pinker: Everything you think you know about violence is wrong
Video: Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence. »
North Pole Ice Growth Twice What Expected
Normally, ice is newly formed after two years, over two meters thick. “Here the ice grew up to four meters,” said a spokesman of Bremerhaven’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. (Original in German with map) (Google translation to English) »
Swine flu made up of genetic components from 4 different flu strains
Claim: Swine Flu virus was genetically manufactured from four existing flu virus types: 1. American Swine Influenza Virus 2. North American Avian Influenza Virus 3. Human Influenza A Virus, Subtype H1N1 4. Asian/European Swine Influenza Virus »
Iran finally gets their goat
“With the birth of Hana, Iran is among five countries in the world cloning a baby goat,” said Isfahani, an embryologist. »
Frustrated women beg the question: “men are ants, who needs them?”
Just kidding. The actual story is: Asexual Ants Give up on Males Item: A widespread species of tropical ant has stopped producing males according to a new study. According to the lead author of the study, abandonment of distinct genders can be a good thing for some species. “Sexual reproduction is costly in several ways and asexual... »
Early Dinosaur Fossils Show Hints of Feathers
A small dinosaur that once roamed northeastern China was covered with a stiff, hair-like fuzz, a discovery that suggests feathers began to evolve much earlier than many researchers believe — maybe even in the earliest dinosaurs. »
Incoming Asteroid Under Close Watch
Exactly 20 years from today, an asteroid about the size of a 25-story building will come closer to Earth than the networks of communications satellites orbiting the planet. »
Self-Directed Robot Scientist Makes Discovery
The discovery of 12 new functions for genes in one of the most studied organisms in the world wouldn’t be news, except that scientists didn’t discover them. A robot named Adam designed, carried out and discovered the new gene functions. »
Jack Horner Wants to Re-Create T. Rex From Chickens — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Flip the right genetic switches in a chicken embryo and you just might hatch a baby dino. Paleontologist Jack Horner intends to do it. He explains his scheme to rewind evolution in a new book, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn’t Have to Be Forever. We asked him if there is anything—anything at... »
Fish With Transparent Head, “Barrel” Eyes
The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California’s central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact. »
Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis is Wrong
Expert Peer Reviewer for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Richard S. Courtney writes about the non-scientific nonsense of climate politics. »
Did a New Hydropower Dam Trigger China’s Deadly 2008 Earthquake?
The devastating earthquake that killed 80,000 people in China’s Sichuan Province last May may have been triggered by a recently built hydropower dam that lies only three miles from the quake’s epicenter, some researchers are arguing. »
Poll reveals British doubts over Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution
Survey shows more than half of the British public believe that the theory of evolution cannot explain the full complexity of life on Earth, and a “designer” must have lent a hand. »
5,000-year-old ‘ice man’ was killed by arrows
In addition to being shot in the back with an arrow and bludgeoned from behind – both of which likely caused the end to his 45-year existence – Oetzi received a nasty gash on his hand just days earlier that reached down to the bone. »
Quantum computers may lead to practical teleportation technology
“The current experiment marks the first in which information has traveled a significant distance — 1 meter, or a little more than 3 ft. — between two isolated atoms. ..An ultrafast laser pulse triggers the atoms to emit photons simultaneously. If the photons interact in just the right way, their parent atoms enter a... »
Climate change already “irreversible”: NOAA
NOAA researcher defines “irreversible” as change that would remain for 1,000 years even if humans stopped adding carbon to the atmosphere immediately. »
Key Molecule for Life Found in Habitable Region of the Galaxy
A sugar molecule linked to the origin of life was discovered in a potentially habitable region of our galaxy. »
iRobis Announces Complete Cognitive Software for Robots
iRobis has announced that the world’s first “complete cognitive software system for robotics” is ready for application. The system turns robots into self-developing, adaptive, problem-solving, “thinking” machines. »
Scientists urge caution on global warming
While the new Obama administration promises aggressive, forward-thinking environmental policies, Weather Channel co-founder Joseph D’Aleo and other scientists are organizing lobbying efforts to take aim at the cap-and-trade bill that Democrats plan to unveil in January. »
Turkish megaliths predate Stonehenge by 6,000 years
Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. »
Earliest Reference Describes Christ as ‘Magician’
A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that, according to an expert epigrapher, could be engraved with the world’s first known reference to Christ. »
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