From Phys.org: Many bacteria are equipped with a flagellum, a helical propeller that allows bacteria to travel. The flagellum is assembled in a highly organized manner involving the stepwise addition of each of its internal parts. However, there are many open questions as to how this orderly construction is achieved. In a study published in Science Advances, a Japanese research team centered at Osaka University has uncovered new molecular details and provided a model explaining how stepwise flagellar assembly occurs. As single-celled organisms, bacteria have devised elegant methods to move around their environment. The flagellum consists of a microscopic motor, which provides torque, and a long, rigid, spiral-shaped filament that drives propulsion. The motor and filament are connected by a Read More ›

Report: NAS Launches New Report: “The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science”: Today is the launch of NAS’s newest report by David Randall and Christopher Welser. The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform examines the different aspects of the reproducibility crisis of modern science. Our goal is to bring the reproducibility crisis to the forefront of public awareness and to call on policymakers to take effective steps to address it. We also include a series of policy recommendations, scientific and political, for alleviating the reproducibility crisis. NAS was founded on, and continues to be guided by the idea that the pursuit of truth is the highest purpose of scholarly work. Civil and open debate is Read More ›

From Michael Erard at Science: About 100,000 years ago, ancient humans started etching lines and hashtag patterns onto red rocks in a South African cave. Such handiwork has been cited as the first sign our species could make symbols—distinct marks that stand for some meaning—and thus evidence of a sophisticated mind. But a new study, reported here this week at Evolang, a biannual conference on the evolution of language, finds that these markings and others like them lack key characteristics of symbols. Instead, they may have been more for decoration or enjoyment. … Tylén’s team found that, in the eyes of today’s humans, younger markings had more clearly defined visual elements and were more aesthetically regular than older ones. Participants Read More ›

Wipf and Stock has generously agreed to let me post my 2016 book Christianity for Doubters on my website now, so you can download the entire book here. Although I tried to avoid theology as much as possible in my 2015 Discovery Institute Press book, In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design, second edition, in a section entitled “A Theological Supplement” I explained my motivation for wanting to write (later) the more theological “Christianity for Doubters”: It is widely believed that Darwinism is based on good science, and that those who oppose it simply do not like its philosophical and religious implications. The truth is exactly the opposite. In a June 15, 2012 post at www.evolutionnews.org, Max Planck Read More ›

From Philip Perry at BigThink: The ability to run long distances and sweat—so as not to overheat, allowed our ancestors to wear out other animals. Sweating was the key factor. Consider a gazelle running over long distances and being chased by our progenitors. The fact that they can sweat and the gazelle can’t means they can last far longer in the heat of the African Savannah. … Sweating, in addition to being a highly advanced cooling system, may have also acted as a defense mechanism. Anyone who’s ever played shirtless tackle football in the summertime knows how hard it is to catch someone who’s slick and sweaty. … More. It’s not clear, in that case, why body armor got started. Read More ›

From Steve Dent at Engadget: For the first time, scientists have peered into living cells and created videos showing how they function with unprecedented 3D detail. Using a special microscope and new lighting techniques, a team from Harvard and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute captured zebrafish immune cell interactions with unheard-of 3D detail and resolution. The tech has already yielded new insights on cell function and could transform our understanding of how organisms function at the smallest scales. … The stunning result, as shown above, is a live window into immune cell function with ten times more detail than ever seen before. In one shot, an orange-tinted immune cell scoops up blue sugar particles, and in another, a cancer cell Read More ›

Gravitational waves are thought to be ripples in the fabric of space-time, caused by violent processes. From Davide Castelvecchi at Nature: With a handful of discoveries already under their belts, gravitational-wave scientists have a long list of what they expect more data to bring, including insight into the origins of the Universe’s black holes; the extreme conditions inside neutron stars; a chronicle of how the Universe structured itself into galaxies; and the most-stringent tests yet of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Gravitational waves might even provide a window into what happened in the first few moments after the Big Bang. More. The difficulty is, do gravitational waves exist or are they just today’s phlogiston – an idea that explained Read More ›

Recently, Trinity International University’s Henry Center’s online journal Sapientia asked, “Can Science Detect Intelligent Design? An Introduction,” sponsored by Hans Madueme. Design theorist Stephen C. Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell, replied at Evolution News & Science Today: Where did the information in the cell come from? And how did the cell’s complex information processing system arise? These questions lie at the heart of contemporary origin-of-life research. Clearly, the informational features of the cell at least appear designed. And, as I show in extensive detail in my book Signature in the Cell, no theory of undirected chemical evolution explains the origin of the information needed to build the first living cell. Why? There is simply too much information in Read More ›

From Emily Conover at Science News: Quantum entanglement has left the realm of the utterly minuscule, and crossed over to the just plain small. Two teams of researchers report that they have generated ethereal quantum linkages, or entanglement, between pairs of jiggling objects visible with a magnifying glass or even the naked eye — if you have keen vision. Physicist Mika Sillanpää and colleagues entangled the motion of two vibrating aluminum sheets, each 15 micrometers in diameter — a few times the thickness of spider silk. And physicist Sungkun Hong and colleagues performed a similar feat with 15-micrometer-long beams made of silicon, which expand and contract in width in a section of the beam. Both teams report their results in Read More ›

From David Snoke at the Christian Scientific Society: Some people gave me feedback that this was the best CSS meeting ever. We had a great time discussing both the strange science of quantum mechanics, and some of the implications for religion … Erica Carlson gave a great introduction to the strangeness of QM. She argued strongly against the idea that our minds control reality, as some “new age” writers have argued. Rather, our minds at most control the set of questions that measurement may give answers to. More. The Society now has a Facebook page. See also: At Scientific American: “Inexplicable lab results may be telling us we’re on the cusp of a new scientific paradigm” This doesn’t sound like Read More ›

But putting it that way would have been a bad career move, so the researchers present the facts and leave it at that. From ScienceDaily: A new study of guenon monkeys in Gombe National Park is the first to provide genetic evidence of ongoing mating between two distinct species. These monkeys have successfully been producing hybrid offspring for hundreds maybe even thousands of years. Prior studies have suggested that the different physical characteristics of these monkeys keeps them from interbreeding. So, if their faces don’t match, they shouldn’t be mating, right? Wrong, according to this latest evidence. … Prior studies and conventional wisdom have suggested that the physical characteristics of guenon monkeys with a variety of dazzling colors and very Read More ›

From Michael Price at the Evolution Institute, interviewing independent scholar John Campbell, author of several books on universal Darwinism, John O. Campbell, an independent scholar from British Columbia, has published several works [1-4] describing his version of universal Darwinism. This framework proposes that Darwinian selection explains what exists not just biologically but in many other realms as well, from the quantum to the cultural to the cosmological. My interest in John’s framework developed after I began researching ‘cosmological natural selection with intelligence’ [5-7], and seeing how concepts like entropy, selection, and adaptation seem fundamental in both biology and physics. My research led me to the Evo Devo Universe research community, to which John also belongs, and I soon learned of his remarkable Read More ›

Evolutionists do not have a clear understanding of how photosynthesis arose, as evidenced by a new paper from Kevin Redding’s laboratory at Arizona State University which states that: read more …

From computer engineer Bernardo Kastrup at Scientific American: It turns out, however, that some predictions of QM are incompatible with non-contextuality even for a large and important class of non-local theories. Experimental results reported in 2007 and 2010 have confirmed these predictions. To reconcile these results with the current paradigm would require a profoundly counterintuitive redefinition of what we call “objectivity.” And since contemporary culture has come to associate objectivity with reality itself, the science press felt compelled to report on this by pronouncing, “Quantum physics says goodbye to reality.” The tension between the anomalies and the current paradigm can only be tolerated by ignoring the anomalies. This has been possible so far because the anomalies are only observed in Read More ›

Recently, these stories popped over the desk (might as well address them all at once): From Dirk Schulze-Makuch at AirSpaceMag: Life May Have Begun in Ocean Sediments, According to New Theory During the Hadean time period, more than four billion years ago, the Earth was much more active than it is today, and hot water percolated through Earth’s crust in many places. The submarine crust, being covered by water, would have protected any primitive organisms from ultraviolet radiation. The porosity and chemical reactivity of the sediments between the crust and the seawater are critical in Westall’s model, as it is thought to have led to miniature “chemical reactors” that enhanced formation of the organic building blocks needed for life. While Read More ›