I’ve already written here about the recent dust-up between the United Methodist Church (UMC)and Discovery Institute. Being involved with this has caused me, as a United Methodist, to take a closer look at some of the official statements of the UMC on science. As regular UD readers will likely know, the church has banned Discovery Read More…
Month: January 2016
Quantum links are fundamental structure of universe?
From Quanta: Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. … In 2012, Jay Olson and Timothy Ralph, both physicists at the University of Queensland in Australia, laid out a procedure to encrypt data so that it can be decrypted Read More…
Jaguars, cougars survived Ice Age by adjusting diets
From National Geographic: Jaguars are old cats. They first evolved in Eurasia sometime around three million years ago before spreading both west and east, eventually inhabiting a range from southern England to Nebraska and down into South America. Today’s range of southern Arizona to Argentina—over 3.4 million square miles—is only a sliver of their Ice Read More…
ID, philosophy, and computer programming
From Jonathan Bartlett (aka johnnyb) in his new book, New Programmers Start Here What separates modern computers from the calculating machines of the past is that modern computers are general-purpose computers. That is, they are not limited to a specific set of predesigned features. I can load new features onto a computer by inputting the Read More…
Evolution vs common descent, universal common descent
There is a fair bit of confusion out there around three terms: 1. Evolution 2. Common descent 3. Universal common descent The recent announcement of a rethink evolution conference sponsored by the Royal Society in London in November has meant that many people now know about the growing problems with the textbook Darwinism we learned Read More…
Do we control our gut biome? Maybe
Scientific American asks: Does our Microbiome Control Us or Do We Control It? What the article tells us is not the conventional “they utterly control us” that probably caused you to skip it before: We may be able to keep our gut in check after all. That’s the tantalizing finding from a new study published today Read More…
Why “space” is hard to understand
From Dan Falk at Nautilus: In his popular book The Fabric of the Cosmos, physicist Brian Greene explains that although Einstein’s theory demolished Newton’s absolute space, it gave us something else in its place—a four-dimensional structure known as spacetime—and this, Greene argues, is absolute. You and I might disagree about the duration of a parade, Read More…
Warm-blooded lizards? Yes, and we don’t know just how yet
From New Scientist: First warm-blooded lizards switch on mystery heat source at will The first known warm-blooded lizard, the tegu, can heat itself to as much as 10 ̊C above its surroundings – making it unique among reptiles. But bizarrely, it only switches on its heating system at certain times of the year. … Even Read More…
Climate Alarmists Trot Out the Doomsday Clock
Did you catch the headlines about a group of scientists trotting out the venerable old Doomsday Clock because the US has not agreed to destroy its economy in the service of climate change alarmism? Whatever its merits during the Cold War (when actual Armageddon was sometimes only literal minutes away), the Doomsday Clock today Read More…
Cells poll their neighbours before moving around
From ScienceDaily: Comparing notes boosts cells sensing accuracy To decide whether and where to move in the body, cells must read chemical signals in their environment. Individual cells do not act alone during this process, two new studies on mouse mammary tissue show. Instead, the cells make decisions collectively after exchanging information about the chemical Read More…
Researcher: Parenting doesn’t matter after all
It’s all in our genes … From Brian Boutwell at Quillette: Why parenting may not matter and why most social science research is probably wrong Based on the results of classical twin studies, it just doesn’t appear that parenting—whether mom and dad are permissive or not, read to their kid or not, or whatever else—impacts Read More…
Could the internet outlive humanity?
That seems like a strange question, but there is a background to it. Marvin Minsky, artificial intellignce pioneer, died on Sunday at the age of 88: Professor Minsky, in 1959, co-founded the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Project (later the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) with his colleague John McCarthy, who is credited with coining the term “artificial intelligence.” Read More…
Guinea pigs tweak their own DNA too
From New Scientist: Hot stuff. For the first time, wild mammals have been seen responding to higher temperatures by altering chemical structures on their DNA. These epigenetic changes may adjust the activity of specific genes, and some are passed on to offspring. “Global temperatures are rising. It is crucial to understand how wild species are Read More…
“Power pose” is shoddy statistics science?
From Slate: Amy Cuddy’s famous finding is the latest example of scientific overreach. Consider the case of Amy Cuddy. The Harvard Business School social psychologist is famous for a TED talk, which is among the most popular of all time, and now a book promoting the idea that “a person can, by assuming two simple Read More…
Do we inherit more than genes from Dad?
And gosh, weren’t we hoping it was a pile, but never mind… 😉 From Science: Male mice bequeath an unexpected legacy to their progeny. Two studies published online this week in Science reveal that sperm from the rodents carry pieces of RNAs that alter the metabolism of their offspring. The RNAs spotlighted by the studies Read More…