From Phys.org: Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a new technique to more precisely analyze bacterial populations, to reveal epigenetic mechanisms that can drive virulence. The new methods hold the promise of a potent new tool to offset the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance by bacterial pathogens. The research was published today in the journal Nature Communications, and conducted in collaboration with New York University Langone Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School. The information content of the genetic code in DNA is not limited to the primary nucleotide sequence of A’s, G’s, C’s and T’s. Individual DNA bases can be chemically modified, with significant functional consequences. In the bacterial Read More ›

It might be. Further to Blasphemy about dark matter: A second career for Torquemada? Or is the whole “denialism” sturm-und-flapdoodle beginning to attract well-deserved mockery?: Note this from the paywalled article: If dark matter is responsible for such uniform rotation speeds, it would require an extraordinarily precise distribution of the invisible stuff – “fine-tuning in the extreme,” as Milgrom calls it. “It’s like taking 100 building blocks and throwing them on the floor, and lo and behold, I see a castle.” MOND offers an explanation he finds more plausible: “You don’t need the hidden mass.” The desired effects can be explained by modifying our understanding of gravity. The two scientists who propose tweaking Newton’s laws of gravity to eliminate the Read More ›

Since several of the chapters and sections of my new Discovery Institute Press book “In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design, 2nd edition” have previously appeared elsewhere, you can read much of it for free using the following links: Chapter 1 – What is Intelligent Design? (also published by the El Paso Times and Human Events, Dec 2013) Chapter 2 – A Mathematician’s View of Evolution published by The Mathematical Intelligencer, 2000. Chapter 3 – How the Scientific Consensus is Maintained (also published by Human Events, July 2014) Chapter 4 – Entropy and Evolution published by Bio-Complexity, June 2013. Section 5.1 – Why Evolution is Different excerpt from Section 5.3 – Similarities Do Not Prove the Absence of Read More ›

The recent discovery of dinosaur blood cells in a 75-million-year-old fossil may shed new light on an old controversy: Although the cells are unlikely to contain DNA, those extracted from better preserved fossils using the same technique may do so, she says. And even without DNA, soft tissue cells and molecules could help us learn much more about dinosaur physiology and behaviour, the team says. For example, the physical size of blood cells can reveal insights into metabolism, and the possible transition from a cold to warm-blooded existence. – from New Scientist But were dinos always warm-blooded? From ScienceDaily: “Upon re-analysis, it was apparent that dinosaurs weren’t just somewhat like living mammals in their physiology — they fit right within Read More ›

An essay contest from the Royal Institute of Philosophy and Cambridge University Press Entrants could win £2,500, publication in Philosophy, and a half hour of fame. No, but seriously, they could contribute to an increasingly significant discussion. Old style vitalism, attributing an internal animating substance or force to living things gave way to the idea that life may yet be a property over and above physical and chemical ones. Subsequent to that it was widely thought that life is an organisational or functional feature of bodies instantiated by their physical properties. With ongoing debates about analogous issues relating to mind (especially consciousness and intentionality) still running, and renewed interest in anti-reductionist interpretations of emergence and of teleological description and explanation Read More ›

From the Dark Matter Deniers. At Discover: Exploring a blasphemous alternative to one of modern physics’ most vexing enigmas. We’d have to pay to read the article, but the language intended to draw us in is surely interesting. A second career for Torquemada? Or is the whole “denialism” sturm-und-flapdoodle beginning to attract well-deserved mockery? Denialism these days usually means a willingness to address inconvenient facts. Just as quote mining usually means quoting Darwin’s followers when they let down their guard and speak honestly with each other. Follow UD News at Twitter!

And textbook claims are incorrect, researcher says. From The Scientist : Mosaicism can result when a de novo mutation arises after an embryo is formed. Using newer, more sensitive sequencing technologies, researchers have recently begun to identify mosaic mutations. … Of these 107 mutations analyzed, seven (6.5 percent) were not detected in the parents’ germlines. … “Given the limitations of current sequencing technologies, this [frequency of mosaic mutations] may be just touching the tip of the iceberg,” said Philip Awadalla of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Toronto, who works on human population and medical genomics but was not involved in the current study. … “The textbook knowledge that our genome is identical in all the Read More ›

Further to The war on falsifiability, from Laszlo Bencze: In This Idea Must Die, cosmologist Sean Carroll argues that the criterion of falsifiability as a characteristic of scientific theories must die because it is holding back the advance of science. So what is “falsifiability” and why does it matter? First of all, falsifiability is not a scientific theory at all. It is a philosophical proposition about the nature of scientific theories. Basically it is the tent pole for Karl Popper’s attempt to distinguish science from other things like pseudo-science, metaphysics, and mathematics. It states that unless a theory allows for the possibility that certain observations would prove the theory false, the theory is not a scientific one.  Karl Popper (1902–1994) Read More ›

Barry Arrington notes Absence of evidence for a proposition does not make it unfalsifiable. A proposition is unfalsifiable if, in principle, there can be no empirical test that would disprove it. That is of course correct. But where does it leave the multiverse? Writing as I did, I had taken for granted that no evidence could support the multiverse. Science is about studying this universe, not hypothetical others. But I was getting ahead of myself. There may be no evidence for a cougar concealing himself in the wildlife preserve adjacent to a hog barn. But anyone familiar with the big cat’s elusiveness would be unwise to rule it out in principle. A systematic search with well-trained tracking dogs might verify Read More ›

Evolutionary thought did not begin nor end with Charles Darwin. To be sure Darwin was its most important exponent, but evolutionary thinking goes back centuries before 1859 when Darwin first published his book on evolution, and it continued to develop long after Darwin. For example, for all his theorizing Darwin had little idea how biological variation—a crucial, fundamental component of evolutionary theory—actually occurs. How do species change to begin with? About half a century later evolutionists constructed neoDarwinism which added to Darwin’s theory the idea that random genetic mutations provided the needed biological variation which occasionally hit upon improvements which would be preserved via natural selection. Indeed, according to evolution, whales, oak trees, and humans all must have been created Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Rich array of artifacts shows mix of techniques dating to early Upper Paleolithic The rich array of artifacts shows a mix of techniques for making points, blades, scrapers and cutting flakes. “These toolmakers appear to have achieved a division of labor that may have been part of an emerging pattern of more organized social structures,” Stutz says. The theory that greater social division of labor was important at this prehistoric juncture was first put forward by anthropologists Steven Kuhn and Mary Stiner. “Our work really seems to support that idea,” Stutz says. “The finds from Mughr el-Hamamah give us a new window onto a transitional time, on the cusp of modern human cultural behaviors, bridging the Middle and Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Dr John Stewart, Associate Professor in Paleoecology and Environmental Change at Bournemouth University (BU), is part of a team which analysed data on rabbit bone remains, found in archaeological excavations of caves in the Iberian Peninsula. They found that while rabbits were a crucial part of the modern humans’ diet, they were relatively under-utilised by Neanderthals. “Rabbits originated in Iberia and they are a very special kind of resource, in that they can be found in large numbers, they are relatively easy to catch and they are predictable,” said Dr Stewart. “This means that they are quite a good food source to target. The fact that the Neanderthals did not appear to do so suggests that this was Read More ›

My (O’Leary for News)’s new piece at Salvo: Proving Grounded Multiverse Supporters Put the Brakes on Falsifiability … today, some scientists want to throw falsifiability overboard. They hope by doing this to protect the concept of the multiverse. Put simply, there is currently no evidence for the existence of any universes other than our own, making the theory of the multiverse unfalsifiable. But if the proposal to dispense with falsifiability were accepted, that would be very convenient for naturalist atheists. They could then argue that any stream of events that occurs in our universe may well have occurred differently in any one of an infinite number of other universes. So no inferences (other than their own) could be drawn from Read More ›

Or even a mystery series? At Retraction Watch: Upon realizing they had experienced a case of mistaken cell-line identity, the authors of a 2014 Nature paper on lung cancer think “it prudent to retract pending more thorough investigation,” as they explain in a notice published Wednesday. But The problem seems to stem from more than just honest error, according to corresponding author Julian Downward, a scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK. In a 1,215 word statement, sent to us via the Director of Research Communications and Engagement at Cancer Research UK, which funds Downward’s research, Downward told us the backstory not presented in the journal’s retraction note: … More. Your mileage may vary, but the people I Read More ›

Rabbi Moshe Averick is comprehensively revising Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused, Illusory World of the Atheist (Mosaica Press). He asked if I know of interesting citations from 2015, explaining that he has put quotations in chrono order going back to 1934. If readers can help, please put the quotes with links in the comments box. I’d suggest looking at some of Suzan Mazur’s recent work at the Huffington Post, including Origin of life: Highlights of Suzan Mazur’s interview with researcher Corrado Spadafora and Suzan Mazur: A non-linear language needed for life? Meet Luis Villareal Her book, The Origin of Life Circus is an excellent source as well. There might also be something here. The Science Fictions series at your Read More ›