In Greenland. From Tia Ghose at LiveScience: The species, dubbed Tamisiocaris borealis, used large, bristly appendages on its body to rake in tiny shrimplike creatures from the sea, and likely evolved from the top predators of the day to take advantage of a bloom in new foods in its ecosystem, said study co-author Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in England. More. This is tremendous, but let’s all revise our expectations about “gigantic”: These ancient sea monsters grew to about 70 centimeters (2.7 feet) long and “looked like something completely out of this planet,” with massive frontal appendages for grasping prey, huge eyes on stalks, and a mouth shaped like a piece of canned pineapple, Vinther told Read More ›

If you are interested in submitting a paper for the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism in Biology online conference, the deadline is fast approaching!
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For example, Life on Mars: New focus on deciding where to look vs. The aliens went extinct before we found them— there, that’s the answer! But now, consider all the other theses about why the aliens, they never write, they never phone Astrobiology is, as has been famously said, at present a discipline without a subject. And, one would add, philosophy of science hobby where hidden theology rules, in the absence of evidence. You know the sort of thing: What kind of a God would/wouldn’t …? What warm pillows for an academic grantsman when we actually don’t know what is going on out there. Either we can’t know about extraterrestrial life, in which case we should just forget about it. Read More ›

From physician Nathaniel P. Morris at Scientific American: Take an example of a man who walks into an emergency department, mumbling incoherently. He says he’s hearing voices in his head, but insists there’s nothing wrong with him. He hasn’t used any drugs or alcohol. If he were to be evaluated by mental health professionals, there’s a good chance he might be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia. But what if that same man were deeply religious? What if his incomprehensible language was speaking in tongues? If he could hear Jesus speaking to him? He might also insist nothing were wrong with him. After all, he’s practicing his faith. It’s not just the ambiguities of mental health diagnoses that create Read More ›

Not what we consider most interesting, not what got us the most hits, but stories that seem to signal a growing trend: 1. The Royal Society’s almost aborted efforts to free evolution studies from the stranglehold of Darwinism have been hope in the midst of stagnation. It is safer to be a non-Darwinian now that many are rethinking evolution. Also, much more interesting, as a recent books list shows. Note: The issue isn’t really whether Darwinism (or neo-Darwinism or whatever) will be disconfirmed. It has long functioned as a religion, or if you like, a metaphysic, as Darwinist historian Michael Ruse has often pointed out: Evolution after Darwin had set itself up to be something more than science. It was Read More ›

In the fact of changes at NASA. Release your inner adult. From Debra Werner at SpaceNews: “You are leaders in your community, please be a source of signal, not a source of noise,” Zurbuchen said Dec. 12 during the annual Earth Science Town Hall meeting at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. The names of two key new figures, NASA administrator and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy are not yet announced. Funding for NASA’s Earth science program has traditionally waxed and waned with changing administrations. Funding as a percent of NASA’s overall budget declined sharply from 2001 to 2006, the early years of the George W. Bush presidency, dipping from about 11 Read More ›