Further to “Water’s unique sense of time” (amazing, these accidental freaks of nature,) we also learn, this time from Aeon, about the conundrum of universal constants, like the speed of light: Light travels at around 300,000 km per second. Why not faster? Why not slower? A new theory inches us closer to an answer Electromagnetic theory gave a first crucial insight 150 years ago. The Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell showed that when electric and magnetic fields change in time, they interact to produce a travelling electromagnetic wave. Maxwell calculated the speed of the wave from his equations and found it to be exactly the known speed of light. This strongly suggested that light was an electromagnetic wave – as was Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Using innovative ultrafast vibrational spectroscopies, the researchers show why liquid water is unique when compared to most other molecular liquids. (Actually, usage note: To be unique, water must survive comparison with all other molecular liquids. But let’s get on with the story.) Water is a very special liquid with extremely fast dynamics. Water molecules wiggle and jiggle on sub-picosecond timescales, which make them undistinguishable on this timescale. While the existence of very short-lived local structures — e.g. two water molecules that are very close to one another, or are very far apart from each other — is known to occur, it was commonly believed that they lose the memory of their local structure within less than 0.1 picoseconds. Read More ›

  From ScienceDaily: ‘Tree of life’ for 2.3 million species released Presumably, “tree of life” is placed in quotation marks because it so little resembles a tree. Didn’t it used to be capped, as Tree of Life? 😉 The new style is probably a good sign. The first draft of the tree of life for all 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes has been released. Thousands of smaller trees have been published over the years for select branches, but this is the first time those results have been combined into a single tree. The end result is a digital resource that is available online for anyone to use or edit, much like a ‘Wikipedia’ for evolutionary Read More ›

From New Scientist: The ways in which climate affected human evolution have been hotly debated for over a century. A persistent idea is that the challenging climate of southern Africa – a sparsely vegetated, dry savannah – drove humans to walk on two legs, grow large brains and develop technology. “I was hooked on the savannah-adaptation idea in my studies in the 1980s,” says Rick Potts from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC (see diagram). But by the 1990s, Potts had a new theory. “I realised that the critical part of the human evolutionary story is how our lineage was able to become so versatile… capable of invading habitats everywhere,” he says. We’re not master savannah inhabitants, we’re master invaders. Read More ›

A friend recommends this fun vid about the scale of our solar system, made by self-described “highly intelligent goofballs.” Follow UD News at Twitter!

Steve Laufmann is a consultant in the growing field of Enterprise Architecture, dealing with the design of very large, very complex, composite information systems that are orchestrated to perform specified tasks in demanding environments. In an extremely interesting ENV article that we commend to our readers, he wites: Molecular biology is characterized by growing questions and shrinking answers. It’s like the guy who, after untying his boat, finds himself with one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. As the gap grows, it becomes increasingly hard to ignore. And uncomfortable. And temporary. And this is evolution’s grand challenge: The complex programs and amazing molecular machines at the heart of life simply cannot be explained by any current Read More ›

If a man tells you he cannot know the truth, you can be sure he will probably act as if he has no obligation to tell the truth. At this point our readers may be asking, why is Barry so focused on the issue of the materialist tactic of insane denial? It is a fair question. And the answer is I have a (possibly perverse) curiosity about whether there is any limit to how many times they will deny a truth in bad faith all the while knowing that everyone knows exactly what they are doing. Is there any limit to the earth they are willing to scorch? Will they go on saying the red pen is a flower pot Read More ›

In the Why thread, commenter KH has challenged: KH, 157:>>What you see as “self evident first principles”, others may not see it that way. And, with respect, the tone in which you berate them I’d not going to do anything to convince them that you are right.>> Now, the issue is of course both more complex than that and more simple than that. On tone, it is easy to pose as on one side of an issue as a moderate then spend one’s rhetorical effort undermining that side. Given the history of abuse, targetting and trollery that regularly invades UD, that unfortunately has to be reckoned with; and in a wider context of addressing very serious and destructive agendas haunting Read More ›

Notice how quickly some humans move in. And why, exactly? Hey, this is on a level with New Scientist’s claim that Earth is not especially life friendly compared to planets about which various theorists claim there could somehow be life (if their theories happen to be correct). From Ars Technica, , Recent discoveries point to shared traits and blurred borders with our closest relatives. As one intriguing fossil discovery after another has made headlines over the past year, our understanding of our species’ history has started to shift, and a new story is emerging: one where our extinct relatives share many of the traits we had thought were uniquely human, and our own species is not that special after all. Read More ›

From World Magazine:: “With every bone in the body represented multiple times, it is already practically the best-known fossil member of our lineage,” said paleoanthropologist Lee Berger in a conference call with reporters. Berger, a University of Witwatersrand professor and National Geographic explorer-in-residence, led the effort to excavate and study the fossils. But the discovery has already stirred up controversy among researchers, some of whom are unconvinced the fossils represent a new species of hominin—an evolutionary label that includes modern humans and their ancestors. The definition of “species” is itself somewhat arbitrary. Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, doesn’t believe the new fossils have enough “new and unique” features to justify calling them a new species. “The Read More ›

Admitted to be wrong. Here. (We thought there were only ten wrong theories, but never mind.) Science was once about right theories. What’s changed? We pay for it, right or wrong. See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (human evolution) Follow UD News at Twitter!

Here. Can’t quote because dunno what the boss wd think re some language. But back soon. File under: Myers, recycling Follow UD News at Twitter!

In the thread to a prior post  I wrote: The documents constituting the New Testament are vouchsafed with the blood of the martyrs. Nothing else comes remotely close. Orloog scoffs and mocks: The willingness of an Islamic terrorist to become a martyr of his course isn’t a testament for the existence of 72 virgins waiting for him in the afterlife, it is just shows how severe his belief in their existence is! Many religions have their martyrs. Doesn’t make them all true. And again, tell me about the dozens of eye-witnesses of the resurrection who were put to death! And in a response that deserves its own OP — if not a full page ad in the New York Times, KF Read More ›

Well, what is the number 29? What is the rat’s rear end? (Understood from a human perspective.) One keeps wanting to ask: 1. What is the question you really want the answer to? 2. Would you accept an answer that challenges your basic beliefs? If not, why bother? Well the Economist: has decided to blunder in: Subsequent mirror studies have looked at bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans, gibbons, many other monkeys, elephants, dogs, dolphins and various birds. Bonobos, orang-utans, elephants, dolphins and magpies react in ways that might be interpreted as self-recognition. Gorillas, gibbons, monkeys, dogs and pigeons do not. Although some psychologists question the value of the mirror test (dogs, for example, rely heavily on smell rather than vision for individual Read More ›

And not even bipedalism (that’s feet, right?) From ScienceDaily: What the last common ancestor between humans and African apes looked like has remained unclear. A new study now shows that important clues lie in the shoulder. “Humans are unique in many ways. We have features that clearly link us with African apes, but we also have features that appear more primitive, leading to uncertainty about what our common ancestor looked like,” said Nathan Young, PhD, assistant professor at UC San Francisco School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “Our study suggests that the simplest explanation, that the ancestor looked a lot like a chimp or gorilla, is the right one, at least in the shoulder.” Which should be an Read More ›