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From Todd Starnes at Townhall: The Todd Starnes Radio Show obtained exclusive emails between the UCO [University of Central Oklahoma] Student Association and Answers in Genesis explaining why they had to rescind the invitation and opt out of a signed and legally binding contract. “We are currently getting bombarded with complaints from our LGBT community about Ken Ham speaking on our campus,” student body president Stockton Duvall wrote on Jan 25. “I was going to request that Mr. Ham refrains from talking on this issue, even if asked his views during the Q&A.” Ham was scheduled to deliver his remarks on March 5 in the university’s Constitution Hall. I find it highly ironic that after being booked to speak in Read More ›

From Elise Crull at Aeon: The problem is that entanglement violates how the world ought to work. Information can’t travel faster than the speed of light, for one. But in a 1935 paper, Einstein and his co-authors showed how entanglement leads to what’s now called quantum nonlocality, the eerie link that appears to exist between entangled particles. If two quantum systems meet and then separate, even across a distance of thousands of lightyears, it becomes impossible to measure the features of one system (such as its position, momentum and polarity) without instantly steering the other into a corresponding state. Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality Read More ›

From Columbia mathematician Peter Woit at his blog Not Even Wrong: Back in 2003-4 I never would have believed that the subject would end up in the state it finds itself in now. With the LHC results removing the last remaining hope for observational evidence relevant to string theory unification, what we’ve been seeing the last few years has been a concerted campaign to avoid admitting failure by the destructive tactic of trying to change the usual conception of testable science. Two examples of this from last week were discussed here, and today there’s a third effort along the same lines, Quantum Multiverses, by Hartle. Unlike the others, this one includes material on the interpretation of quantum mechanics one may Read More ›

Remember Gunter Bechly? That gifted and productive German paleontologist who got driven out and also disappeared from Wikipedia because he thinks there is design in nature?* Alex Berezow for American Council for Science and Health noticed and writes: If a respected scientist endorses a controversial view, should he or she be erased from history? The editors at Wikipedia think so, but only if the controversial opinion is one they personally dislike. That’s precisely what happened to a respected German paleontologist, Günter Bechly. His biography on Wikipedia has been deleted. Poof. Gone. It’s like he never existed. According to German Wikipedia, where a version of Dr. Bechly’s page (which appears to have been created in 2012) still exists, he was once an Read More ›

From Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet: Unhinged criticism of the man has obscured the merits of his book: Professor Jordan Peterson, author of the top-selling 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, is beginning to look weary in the face of the waves of hatred he has endured recently. Two years ago, he was almost unknown outside his field. A Canadian clinical psychologist and professor of psychology (University of Toronto), he is author of over 100 papers in his specialities, the psychology of religious and ideological belief and personality theory. His principal work, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), was a well-received tome. He taught at Harvard before being awarded tenure at the University of Toronto. So how Read More ›

From Susan Milius at ScienceNews: In a lab face-off, 43 percent of Pheropsophus jessoensis bombardiers escaped alive after being swallowed by toads, a pair of researchers at Kobe University in Japan report February 7 in Biology Letters. These lucky beetles were vomited up — in one case, 107 minutes after being gulped — covered with goo, but still able to pull themselves together and walk away. Fifteen of the 16 beetles coughed up into daylight lived for at least 17 days, with one still going 562 days later. Scalding internal beetle blasts proved vital in persuading the toads to spit the bugs up, ecologists Shinji Sugiura and Takuya Sato report. The pair prodded beetles into spraying until no more defensive Read More ›

as in “your last question, the question for which you will be remembered.” Some interesting answers (in the form of questions) emerge: Can we program a computer to find a 10,000-bit string that encodes more actionable wisdom than any human has ever expressed? – Scott Aronson Are complex biological neural systems fundamentally unpredictable? – Anthony Aguirre Are the simplest bits of information in the brain stored at the level of the neuron? – Dorsa Amir and many more. Everyone seems to be trying their hand on the 20th anniversary. See also: CSICOP’s ridiculously out-of-date questions and answers on evolution show how far naturalism has fallen They don’t even keep up.

From Nature: The first known multipurpose tools were crafted 170,000 years ago by Neanderthals, who exploited fire during the manufacturing process. More. From Kimberly Hickok at Science: Neandertals evolved in Europe perhaps as early as 400,000 years ago, but it’s unclear when they began to regularly use fire. Until now, the earliest evidence of Neandertals controlling fire dates to the late Middle Pleistocene, about 130,000 years ago. … Back in Grosseto, archaeologist Biancamaria Aranguren and her team from the Italian ministry of culture’s division of archaeology, fine arts, and landscape in Florence, got to work. Finding the wooden tools was a shock. “I thought, ‘It is impossible, what is this?’” Aranguren says. But the fact that the 58 sticks—made mostly Read More ›

From Guenther Witzany, Telos-Philosophische Praxis, Salzburg-Austria, Corrado Spadafora, CNR National Research Council of Italy, and Luis Villarreal, University of California here: Evolution – Genetic Novelty/Genomic Variations by RNA Networks and Viruses, 4 – 8 July 2018 Salzburg – Austria For more than half a century it has been accepted that new genetic information is mostly derived from random‚ error-based’ events. Now it is recognized that errors cannot explain genetic novelty and complexity. Empirical evidence establishes the crucial role of non-random genetic content editors such as viruses and RNA-networks to create genetic novelty, complex regulatory control, inheritance vectors, genetic identity, immunity, new sequence space, evolution of complex organisms and evolutionary transitions. Genetic identities of RNA stem loop groups (RNA-networks) such as e.g., group Read More ›

When it’s this imprecise, is it still science? From ScienceDaily: Flowering plants likely originated between 149 and 256 million years ago according to new UCL-led research. The study, published today in New Phytologist by researchers from the UK and China, shows that flowering plants are neither as old as suggested by previous molecular studies, nor as young as a literal interpretation of their fossil record. We used to hear the term “literal interpretation” in a different context. “The discrepancy between estimates of flowering plant evolution from molecular data and fossil records has caused much debate. Even Darwin described the origin of this group as an ‘abominable mystery’,” explained lead author, Dr Jose Barba-Montoya (UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment). Invoking Darwin Read More ›

Further to “New Scientist embraces politics,” we also learn, from Alice Klein at New Scientist, The love drug that could draw people away from any addiction: The “cuddle chemical” oxytocin boosts social bonds. Soon a version of it will be tested in pill form to see if it can reset the brain wiring that gets us hooked Would it be possible to reverse substance addiction by switching the brain back from drug-chasing mode to social mode? If McGregor’s hunch was right, this could be the silver bullet – a universal treatment for all addictions at once. (paywall) More. Prediction: The love drug won’t work because addiction is more than about finding love; it is about finding power, death, excuses, and escapes Read More ›

From the editors at New Scientist: So yet again we find ourselves criticising Trump, even though we know that some readers are tired of it. Some are his supporters; others simply do not wish to see politics in a science magazine. Hint: If you know your readers are tired of something, stop doing it. The US prez has a genius for living rent-free in the heads of people who hate him and you are living proof. But why inflict the problem on your readers? We make no apology for covering global political issues. Science does not exist in a bubble. It is influenced by, and influences, the wider world. It also underpins an enlightened world view that we strongly advocate. Read More ›

Curious to find and shun, then destroy, all evidence-based doubt. Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design by Matti Leisola and Jonathan Witt here: What happens when an up-and-coming European bioscientist flips from Darwin disciple to Darwin defector? Sparks fly. Just ask biotechnologist Matti Leisola. It all started when a student loaned the Finnish scientist a book criticizing evolutionary theory. Leisola reacted angrily, and set out to defend evolution, but found his efforts raised more questions than they answered. He soon morphed into a full-on Darwin skeptic, even as he was on his way to becoming a leading bio-engineer. Heretic is the story of Leisola’s adventures making waves—and many friends and enemies—at major research labs and universities across Europe. Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Every time our cells divide, the DNA within them must replicate so that each new cell receives the same set of instructions. Molecular machines known as polymerases make these copies of DNA by recognizing the shape of the right base pair combinations — G with C and A with T — and adding them into each new double helix, while discarding those that don’t fit together correctly. Though they are good at their job, polymerases are known to slip up from time to time, generating a mistake roughly one out of every 10,000 bases. If not fixed these become immortalized in the genome as a mutation. … The study, published in a 2015 issue of Nature, showed the Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: In a new PLOS ONE study, scientists from Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Biostudies have shown that certain ‘mechanosensitive’ genes are suppressed when subjected to audible sound. Moreover, these effects vary depending on cell type, where some don’t show any sensitivity. … “One such gene we examined helps in bone formation, and is known to be upregulated with low-intensity ultrasound pulses,” continues Kumeta. “The other genes were associated with wound healing and the extracellular matrix.” Series of cells were placed in an incubator outfitted with a full-range loudspeaker. After several hours of exposure to sounds with specific frequencies, expression levels of the target genes were analysed. The team found that these mechanosensitive genes were suppressed by up to Read More ›