That could impact our understanding of early Earth. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe but finding it on Earth is tricky. So researchers resorted to a computer simulation and found a promising possible compound: Helium-bearing compounds have, until very recently, been considered unlikely to exist under the physical conditions on or inside the Earth, Chen says, but in his opinion, his team’s new predictions change that view. Chen suggests that primordial helium reacted with FeO2 back when the Earth was new, forming a solid material. The compound is sufficiently heavy that it would only rise to the surface through so-called mantle plumes, which are columns of hot, solid rock that move up to the crust. When Read More ›

Mistaking a teapot shape for a golf ball, due to surface features, is one striking example from a recent open-access paper: The networks did “a poor job of identifying such items as a butterfly, an airplane and a banana,” according to the researchers. The explanation they propose is that “Humans see the entire object, while the artificial intelligence networks identify fragments of the object.” News, “Researchers: Deep Learning vision is very different from human vision” at Mind Matters “To see life steadily and see it whole”* doesn’t seem to be popular among machines. *(Zen via Matthew Arnold) See also: Can an algorithm be racist?

From ScienceDaily: According to a new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin that looked at 10 species of vertebrates, evolution used a kind of universal formula for turning non-monogamous species into monogamous species — turning up the activity of some genes and turning down others in the brain. “Our study spans 450 million years of evolution, which is how long ago all these species shared a common ancestor,” said Rebecca Young, research associate in UT Austin’s Department of Integrative Biology and first author of the study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors define monogamy in animals as forming a pair bond with one mate for at least Read More ›

Says Karsten Pultz, author of Exit Evolution: Recently, I wrote a piece for UD describing how a Danish Christian newspaper, Kristeligt Dagblad, is obviously biased in favour of evolution whenever it covers the creation vs. Evolution issue. In the article “Something Is Rotten In The State Of Denmark” I aired my frustration over the fact that I, as an ID proponent, was deprived the opportunity to respond to allegations about me promoting creationism, featured in the newspaper. I had submitted an article to the newspaper where I thoroughly explained how ID differs from creationism, and how the labelling of ID as creationism done by evolutionists, is a strategic distraction executed in order to avoid addressing the huge amount ofproblems in Read More ›

It’s certainly worth reflecting on: It’s fair to say that PCBs and fluorocarbons have altered the biochemical composition of the food web and the interior of the human body, and in the case of the PFASs, the water we drink. (Some PFASs can even fall with rain.) These have been swift, sweeping changes over the course of just three or four generations, too quick for the slow-grinding machinery of human evolution to adapt. And yet, PCBs and PFASs are now an integral part of the human story. They pass from species to species, from mother to child. They are present from conception to death, and consumed with daily meals and holy feasts. The presence of PCBs alone shapes how humankind Read More ›

The interview is with Denis Noble. Recently, we passed along some info about an item, It’s the End of the Gene As We Know It” at Nautilus. Readers here might recall Is the age of the gene finally over? Someone has drawn to our attention that the author, Ken Richardson, had quoted rather generously from Suzan Mazur’s interview with Denis Noble but the version we referred readers to did not reflect that. For example, “It is such discoveries that are turning our ideas of genetic causation inside out. We have traditionally thought of cell contents as servants to the DNA instructions. But, as the British biologist Denis Noble insists, “The modern synthesis has got causality in biology wrong … DNA Read More ›

We all know that the theory of evolution is as well-established as gravity, because we have been taught this in school all our lives. What many people may not know, however, is why evolution is as well-established as gravity.  In his 1888 book Evolution Joseph Le Conte, University of California professor of geology and natural history, and later president of the Geological Society of America, helps us understand why this is so. Of the fossil record, Le Conte writes: [S]pecies seem to come in suddenly, with all their specific characters perfect, remain substantially unchanged as long as they last, and then die out and are replaced by others. Certainly this looks much like immutability of specific forms, and supernaturalism of specific origin.  According to a Read More ›

Since the days of the Terror, authoritarian leftists have been fundamentally the same everywhere. For example, the difference between the authoritarian progressives who run The Atlantic and the authoritarians who ran the Soviet Union is one of degree, not kind. The Atlantic’s recent call to ignore the plain text of the Constitution because it interferes with progressives getting what they want (see here) brings this point into relief. As Justice Scalia once observed, on paper the old Soviet Constitution was far superior to the United States’ Constitution: Our Constitution isn’t the best, if you judge it by its guarantees.  Frankly, the old Soviet constitution was better, and it was full of all kinds of grand guarantees . . . For Read More ›