We are not talking about journals that got in trouble for publishing Incorrect information that is most likely correct. Or information that, whether correct or not, happens to be controversial. Those types are soon dealt with. Nor are we talking about the usual parade of dodges and citation/review scams, or the sinkhole of manufacturing studies to “prove” what is already believed on poor evidence. No, we mean Up the Jolly Roger! This from From Science: According to a tip sent to Science, fraudsters are snatching entire Web addresses, known as Internet domains, right out from under academic publishers, erecting fake versions of their sites, and hijacking their journals, along with their Web traffic. Website spoofing has been around since the Read More ›

From Warwick U: The most Earth-like planet could have been made uninhabitable by vast quantities of radiation, new research led by the University of Warwick has found. The atmosphere of the planet, Kepler-438b, is thought to have been stripped away as a result of radiation emitted from a superflaring Red Dwarf star, Kepler-438. Regularly occurring every few hundred days, the superflares are approximately ten times more powerful than those ever recorded on the Sun and equivalent to the same energy as 100 billion megatons of TNT.More. The find raises a question about how we determine whether a planet is Earth-like. Most Earth-like planet uninhabitable due to radiation, new research suggests C/NET laments, Farewell to hope of life on Kepler-438b, adding Read More ›

Matthew Cobb is a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester and a regular contributor over at Why Evolution Is True. Recently, while critiquing a cartoon from xkcd (shown above), he argued that our DNA is the mindless product of a series of historical accidents. But then he let the cat out of the bag, at the end of his post: On a final note, in some cases, within this amazing noise, there are also astonishing examples of complexity which do indeed appear to be the result of optimisation – and they would boggle the mind of anyone, not just a cocky computer scientist in a hat. In Drosophila there is a gene called Dscam, which is involved in Read More ›

But how different is that from being closer than ever to squaring the circle? So says Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong, here: This week’s string theory hype comes to us from USC physicists Clifford Johnson and Nick Warner, courtesy of the USC press office (see here and here). It’s garden variety hype of this kind, exactly the same claims about strings and extra dimensions that were being made thirty years ago. There’s no acknowledgement these haven’t gone anywhere, instead we’re “closer than ever to an answer”. When the question of testability comes up, the multiverse is not invoked as an excuse. Instead, it seems that dark matter is going to provide the test: … Well, dark matter could provide Read More ›

From xkcd: Try out other “physicist-driven” cartoons here. Follow UD News at Twitter!

As noted earlier, the concept of “species” or “speciation,” as noted in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the most influential academic book ever written, is a mess. Of course no one admits that. And no one needs to be a scientist to see it either. Here, for example, from ScienceDaily: The discovery of a tiny, 170-million-year-old fossil on the Isle of Skye, off the north-west coast of the UK, has led researchers to conclude that three previously recognized species are in fact just one. Differences in tooth shape that had been thought to distinguish three different species were in fact all present in the single lower jaw found on the Isle of Skye. ‘In effect, we’ve “undiscovered” two species,’ Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Stem-cell scientists redefine how blood is made, toppling conventional ‘textbook’ view The findings, published online in the journal Science, prove “that the whole classic ‘textbook’ view we thought we knew doesn’t actually even exist,” says principal investigator John Dick, Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network (UHN), and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto. “Instead, through a series of experiments we have been able to finally resolve how different kinds of blood cells form quickly from the stem cell — the most potent blood cell in the system — and not further downstream as has been traditionally thought,” says Dr. Dick, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology Read More ›

From University of Oxford: As many as 50% of all natural history specimens held in the world’s museums could be wrongly named, according to a new study by researchers from Oxford University and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Researchers … scoured the records of Ipomoea – a large and diverse genus which includes the sweet potato – on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database. Examining the names found on 49,500 specimens from the Americas, they found that 40% of these were outdated synonyms rather than the current name, and 16% of the names were unrecognisable or invalid. In addition, 11% of the specimens weren’t identified, being given only the name of the genus. The team thinks there are three main Read More ›

Zachriel says that “Darwin held that evolution would be frequently characterized by stasis.”  In support of this piece of blithering idiocy he quotes the following from Origin (4th ed): the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form. I responded by placing Zach’s quote in context.  This is what Darwin actually said: On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older species, why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not every Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: A new study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet shows that the ‘grammar’ of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings, published in the journal Nature, explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher — and contribute to the further understanding of how genetic differences affect the risk of developing diseases on an individual level. Under the supervision of Professor Jussi Taipale, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have previously identified most of the DNA words recognised by individual transcription factors. However, much like in a natural human language, the DNA words can be joined to form compound words that are read by multiple transcription Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Monkey. Scanning the brains of humans and monkeys, the research team has identified the area at the front of the brain which in both humans and monkeys recognizes when sequences of sounds occur in a legal order or in an unexpected, illegal order. Scanning the brains of humans and macaque monkeys, the research team has identified the area at the front of the brain which in both humans and monkeys recognises when sequences of sounds occur in a legal order or in an unexpected, illegal order. Professor Petkov said: “Young children learn the rules of language as they develop, even before they are able to produce language. So, we used a ‘made up’ language first developed to study Read More ›

Sky News: [youtube y60wDzZt8yg] 3 fatalities reported, a passerby, a female suicide bomber and one terrorist shot by a police sniper. (I noticed the sniper rifle Friday evening, along with the Beretta M12 sub machine guns favoured by French Police. Also notice, police use of modified Ruger Mini 14s which seem to have burst and full automatic capability. French military — present in the outer cordon — use the FAMAS assault rifle which uses the usual NATO 5.56 x 45 mm round.. FYI an Assault Rifle, following Hitler’s name for the MP44, is a select fire, reduced power round rifle that is more controllable on full auto, fires a more powerful round than the typical 9 mm parabellum used by Read More ›

UDEditors:  “Berra’s Blunder”is a well known and documented error that Darwinist can’t seem to stop themselves from making.  See our glossary for a definition.  In the thread to a previous post Brian Douglas gave us an example of such a blunder and Eric Anderson provided a corrective.  All that follows (except, obviously, the text provided by Brian) is Eric’s:   brian douglas @36: Joe/Jack/virgil/Frankie/whoever, evolution just proposes the mechanism, not a step by step account of how it occurred. Much in the same way that I can propose the mechanisms involved in the production of a car without knowing the step by step process that is actually used. You are partially right, so let me see if we can bridge Read More ›

It’s at least possible. The archaea were only discovered by Carl Woese in the 1970s. From Science Alert: A team from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France has been attempting to redefine the way we classify the organisms living inside our colons. By studying 86 different gene families, they’ve discovered DNA sequences that are different enough to suggest they’re beyond the three forms of life that we currently recognise. Those forms are classified as bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. Archaea were once bundled with bacteria, but have a different biochemical make-up and can survive in more extreme conditions, whereas eukaryotes refers to fungi, plants, and animals. What the Paris team, led by Philippe Lopez and Eric Bapteste, found Read More ›

From The Scientist : In the grand scheme of geologic time, plus or minus a million years isn’t all that much. But new research suggests that the diversification of mammals occurred a full 30 million years later than previously thought, placing the rise the mammalian class in the Jurassic and not the Triassic period. The results were published today (November 16) in PNAS. … What the researchers discovered was an animal with clear postdentary trough, a feature present in primitive animals for hearing. Modern mammals, in contrast, have three bones in the middle ear, which support hearing and balance. The conclusion is that H. clemmenseni is a very primitive precursor to modern mammals. More. … Rich Cifelli, a zoology professor Read More ›