From Nancy Atkinson at Seeker: Thomas Kephart from Vanderbilt University and four of his colleagues from around the world wanted to figure out why our universe seemingly has just three dimensions, especially since, as they wrote, “quantum gravity scenarios such as string theory… assume nine or ten space dimensions at the fundamental level.” They combined particles physics with mathematical knot theory to try and work this out, borrowing the concept of “flux tubes,” which are flexible strands of energy that link elementary particles together. … In an environment of extremely high energy, the team said that the quark-gluon plasma would have been an ideal environment for rapid flux tube formation in the very early universe. But, crucially, they noted that Read More ›

From Nicole Mortillaro at CBC: The star is a red M-dwarf, the most common star in our universe. But until now, it wasn’t believed that a gaseous planet of such a size, would ever exist orbiting this type of low-mass star. … The reason astronomers believed that a gas giant this large wasn’t capable of forming around a low-mass star was due to the belief that there isn’t enough material in a cloud of dust and debris that form star systems such as this one. “Perhaps we’ve just been very lucky and found something that is very, very rare,” said Bayliss, lead author of the paper which will be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Read More ›

From Paul Kingsbury at LiveScience: Recent literature in the social sciences on paranormal cultures argues that despite the rise of a secular, post-religious society, paranormal discourses are becoming increasingly significant in people’s lives in the West. Because the paranormal refers to “events or phenomena… that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding,” researchers have long acknowledged that the paranormal intersects with “normal” everyday life. Recently, however, as a result of a paranormal influence in popular culture, the rise of new spiritualities and commodities associated with them — such as cauldrons, healing crystals and online psychic services — researchers have begun to question describing interest in the paranormal as subcultural or countercultural, rather than mainstream. More. Well, if it is Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: In a new study published in the International Journal of Astrobiology scientists from the University of Oxford show for the first time how evolutionary theory can be used to support alien predictions and better understand their behaviour. They show that aliens are potentially shaped by the same processes and mechanisms that shaped humans, such as natural selection. The theory supports the argument that foreign life forms undergo natural selection, and are like us, evolving to be fitter and stronger over time. Actually theories do not support arguments, they underlie them passively. Sam Levin, a researcher in Oxford’s Department of Zoology, said: ‘A fundamental task for astrobiologists (those who study life in the cosmos) is thinking about what extra-terrestrial Read More ›

No, it’s not just about ID. It’s happening all over. From Robert Knight at Townhall: As a Wikipedia editor, I’ve made many edits and updates over the years to the American Civil Rights Union’s Wikipedia page without interference. So, imagine my shock when I was alerted this past Monday that someone had made the page revert to a very old version with content deleted and outright errors inserted. I went online and corrected a couple of things, but my corrections were instantly undone. Then, it got worse. On Wednesday, another editor removed a lion’s share of the content describing the ACRU’s activities and issues. Gone were entire sections on election law, environmental regulation, gun laws and religious freedom. Better still: Read More ›

From Jason G. Goldman at National Geographic: On November 20, 2013, the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme got a call about an injured orangutan found in the mountainous region of Tapanuli. The orangatang had been fatally injured by humans. But Raya lives on as the representative member of a new orangutan species, Pongo tapanuliensis, or the Tapanuli orangutan—the rarest great ape species on the planet. At 800 members. Eventually, the scientists teamed up. Krützen’s group sequenced the entire genome of 37 wild orangutans throughout Sumatra and Borneo… The results, published November 2 in the journal Current Biology, show that Bornean orangutans, Sumatran orangutans, and the new species from Batang Toru comprise three distinct evolutionary lineages. Incredibly, the oldest lineage belongs to Read More ›

From Alex Berezow at American Council on Science and Health: Climate scientist Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University has sued the National Academy of Sciences, which publishes the prestigious journal PNAS, for publishing an article that disagreed with him. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Jacobson was libeled and slandered. He is suing to get the journal to retract the article. For his hurt feelings and bruised ego, he also wants a big bag of money, $10 million to be precise. To understand this, one must factor in the growing influence of post-modernism in science: There are no facts, only feelings. So unsupported claims are not a problem but hurting someone’s feelings is a big problem, if not a crime. The Read More ›

Should we call on 9-11, the Humane Society, or the vegans… or on soft dino tissue, to restore order? From Matthew Reynolds at Wired: The [March 2017] paper overturned one of the most fundamental things that we thought we knew about dinosaurs – that they split neatly into two groups. This is dinosaur 101. The first group, the Ornithischia, which means ‘bird-hipped’ and includes the Stegosaurus, Triceratops and Iguanodon. The second group is called the Saurischia, meaning ‘lizard-hipped’, and includes predatory dinosaurs (therapods) such as the Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor as well as gigantic herbivorous dinosaurs (sauropodomorphs) including the Diplodocus and Argentinosaurus. … It’s hard to overstate how big a deal this is in the dinosaur world, says Paul Barrett, Read More ›

From Adam Hadhazy at Space.com: A new cosmic map was unveiled in August, plotting where the mysterious substance called dark matter is clumped across the universe. To immense relief — and frustration — the map is just what scientists had expected. The distribution of dark matter agrees with our current understanding of a universe born with certain properties in a Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. So what is the problem here? But for all the map’s confirmatory power, it still tells us little about the true identity of dark matter, which acts as an invisible scaffold for galaxies and cosmic structure. It also does not explain an even bigger factor shaping the cosmos, known as dark energy, an enigmatic Read More ›

Baylor computer scientist Robert Marks II checks in with news about the new book Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics: – (AI-CA) “The Mind Renewed” has published the transcript of the “Dr. Robert J. Marks II : Evolutionary Informatics” interview. Audio. YouTube. – (AI) Essay: “Why You Shouldn’t Worry About A.I. Taking Over the World” by R.J. Marks II at The Stream. – (AI) ID the Future Podcast: Part 1: Math, Computers and Evolution: Robert Marks on Searches and Artificial Intelligence – (AI) ID the Future Podcast: Part 2: Math, Computers and Evolution: Robert Marks on Searches and Artificial Intelligence – (AI) Podcast: Jerry Newcomb’s Vocal Point (James Kennedy Ministry) – (CA-AI) Audio: “Dr. Robert Marks, Origins, Evolution and Information” on God Read More ›

From Paul Nelson at Evolution News & Views: A group of students at the University of the Algarve, in Faro, Portugal, wanted to have a one-day conference on ID at the university. They invited Professor Marcos Eberlin of Campinas State University in Brazil (the 2016 Thomson Medal winner) and me, to speak. The conference was scheduled for Monday, October 23, with university endorsement. Then, as soon as the conference was advertised, outside pressure began to stop it. On September 22, we received word that the event had been cancelled by the university. Score this as Cancellation Number One. … So they ended up, after a second Portuguese cancellation, at a hotel in Spain. I am so proud of the students who Read More ›

Here’s the abstract of a new PNAS article: There’s a new article in PNAS that illustrates the fact that thermodynamics determines the effects of future changes made to a protein molecule. Any one mutation changes the thermodynamic/statistical mechanics of the protein molecule. And these changes in the thermodynamic properties swims around in a giant ocean of statistical possibilities, and consequent improbabilities; so much so, that future mutations following upon any given mutation cannot be ascertained. So, the next time you hear about how they were able to “reconstruct” an ancient protein, allowing the determination of possible pathways, don’t pay any attention to it. Evolutionary prediction is of deep practical and philosophical importance. Here we show, using a simple computational protein Read More ›

Recently, British geneticist Richard Buggs defended the view that a modern human pair could have escaped a genetic bottleneck: It is easy to have misleading intuitions about the population genetic effects of a short, sudden bottleneck. For example, Ernst Mayr suggested that many species had passed through extreme bottlenecks in founder events. He argued that extreme loss of diversity in such events would promote evolutionary change. The matter was taken up at The Skeptical Zone where population geneticist Joe Felsenstein, among others, replied, skeptical but not ruling the idea out. Now Buggs has replied at the Zone to comments by Felsenstein and Schaffner: First, I note that both Schaffner and Felsenstein agree with my point that the bottleneck hypothesis has Read More ›

We have come to the point where leftists in power no longer feel the need to even pretend they are anything other than fascists.  See here. Why are we surprised that their students are fascists when that is what the professors teach them to be?

From ScienceDaily: Life on Earth originated in an intimate partnership between the nucleic acids (genetic instructions for all organisms) and small proteins called peptides, according to two new articles from biochemists and biologists. Their ‘peptide-RNA’ hypothesis contradicts the widely-held ‘RNA-world’ hypothesis, which states that life originated from nucleic acids and only later evolved to include proteins. … Co-author Peter Wills, PhD, professor of physics at the University of Auckland, said, “Compared to the RNA-world hypothesis, what we’ve outlined is simply a much more probable scenario for the origin of life. We hope our data and the theory we’ve outlined in these papers will stimulate discussion and further research on questions relevant to the origins of life.” The two scientists are Read More ›