Mario A. Lopez

I am happy to announce that a new Spanish ID blog is now up and running. Take a look here: ¿Darwin o Diseño Inteligente?

November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. St. Pius V University (Rome) In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov, “Everything contained in Darwin’s Origin of Species depends upon rocks forming slowly over enormous periods of time. The November conference demonstrates with empirical data that such geological time is not available for evolution.” Recently returned from a ground-breaking geological conference in Kazan, sedimentologist Guy Berthault will present the findings of several sedimentological studies conducted Read More ›

By Paul Hudson Climate correspondent, BBC News This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998. But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on Earth is going on? Read more…

OSLO (AP) — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his nascent initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and replace unilateral American action with international diplomacy and cooperation. Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise. The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for Read More ›

Is this politically correct? Hmmm…

Press release issued 25 September 2009 From the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists annual meeting at the University of Bristol, UK Chinese scientists today reveal the discovery of five remarkable new feathered dinosaur fossils which are significantly older than any previously reported. The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird, at last providing hard evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Read more…

NATURE|Vol 461|17 September 2009 Despite the long odds against success, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has come a long way. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), a research discipline that celebrates the 50th anniversary of its inaugural publication this week (see page 345), has always sat at the edge of mainstream astronomy. This is partly because, no matter how scientifically rigorous its practitioners try to be, SETI can’t escape an association with UFO believers and other such crackpots. But it is also because SETI is arguably not a falsifiable experiment. Read more…

Product Description Darwin’s Dilemma examines what many consider to be the most powerful refutation of Darwinian evolution – the Cambrian fossil record. Charles Darwin realized that the fossil evidence did not support his theory of gradual, step-by-step evolutionary development. He hoped that future generations of scientists would make the discoveries necessary to validate his ideas. Today, after more than 150 years of exploration fossil evidence of slow, incremental biological change has yet to be excavated. Instead, we find a picture of the rapid appearance of fully developed, complex organisms during the outset of the Cambrian geological era. Organisms that embody the major animal body plans that exist today. This remarkable explosion of life is truly Darwin’s Dilemma and is best Read More ›

I learned about this bug back in 2001 and fell in love with it.  Here is partly why: Painting in the infrared colors Olga Glazunov – Chaskor, August 27, 2009  The bacterial protein has the capacity for absorption and emission in the infrared spectral region, was successful (put into action) in mammalian cells.  This protein can be used as a nontoxic dye, which will improve the image of the human body, obtained on CT scanners, and thushelp in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. Of the spectrum, which emits a glow derived protein—infrared region, i.e., with a wavelength longer 700nm, It is located outside the visible spectrum, and therefore not perceived by the eye, but can be recorded by special devices, Read More ›

Semiotix – Stephen Pain The distinction between “theorising” and “belief” is extremely important because our attitude differs towards them. In a theory the reified concept of the sign does not have an ontological status but an epistemological one. While in belief, the concept has often a clear ontological one. Uexküll believed in his concept of the Bauplan in the same way as Bergson believed in the vital force. The concept of a plan is of course no different from the creationist’s concept of “intelligent design”. Any usage of the Bauplan is further complicated by its ideological usage in The Biological State, Uexküll‘s template for the German State, one that was anti-democratic and in many instances attractive to the Nazi of Read More ›

Hypothesis Nature 460, 967-971 (20 August 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08183 James A. Lake Endosymbioses have dramatically altered eukaryotic life, but are thought to have negligibly affected prokaryotic evolution. Here, by analysing the flows of protein families, I present evidence that the double-membrane, Gram-negative prokaryotes were formed as the result of a symbiosis between an ancient actinobacterium and an ancient clostridium. The resulting taxon has been extraordinarily successful, and has profoundly altered the evolution of life by providing endosymbionts necessary for the emergence of eukaryotes and by generating Earth’s oxygen atmosphere. Their double-membrane architecture and the observed genome flows into them suggest a common evolutionary mechanism for their origin: an endosymbiosis between a clostridium and actinobacterium. You’ll have to pay for this Read More ›

Quest to find life beyond Earth gets technological boosts By Andrea Pitzer, Special for USA TODAY 8/19/09 The search for intelligent life in the universe is still on. Despite the absence of interstellar tourists to date, astronomers at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) are hoping that we are not alone. And with new spacecraft to locate planets circling nearby stars, as well as more effective listening devices here at home, scientists have more tools at their disposal to find Earth-like planets or signs of other life forms. But the possibility of intelligent life is what interests scientists at SETI. Using SETI’s 42-antenna Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, they can listen in many directions for unusual radio signals Read More ›

NATURE|Vol 460|13 August 2009|doi:10.1038/nature08304 REVIEW Yi Lu1, Natasha Yeung1, Nathan Sieracki1 & Nicholas M. Marshall1 Metalloproteins account for nearly half of all proteins in nature. Protein metal-binding sites are responsible for catalysing important biological processes, such as photosynthesis, respiration, water oxidation, molecular oxygen reduction and nitrogen fixation. Much effort has been devoted to understanding the structure and function of metalloproteins, as summarized by other reviews in this Insight. The ultimate test is to use this knowledge to design new metalloproteins that reproduce the structures and functions of native metalloproteins1–3. Metalloprotein design is not just an intellectual exercise that duplicates biochemical and biophysical studies of native metalloproteins. This ‘bottom-up’ approach can also elucidate structural features that may remain hidden in those Read More ›

Friday, 24 July 2009 01:05 ALEXANDER CHIEJINA With Agency Report Scientists have long suspected that the sex chromosome that only males carry is deteriorating and could disappear entirely within a few million years. However, until now, no one has understood the evolutionary processes that control this chromosome’s demise. Now, a pair of Penn State scientists has discovered that this sex chromosome, the Y chromosome, has evolved at a much more rapid pace than its partner chromosome, the X chromosome, which both males and females carry. Read more… Here is some relief: “Even though some of the genes appear to be important, the team thinks there is a chance that the Y chromosome eventually could disappear. If this happens, it won’t Read More ›