Kinda Like Chicken
It’s astonishing that 68 million-year-old fossilized bones can contain preserved soft tissue, sure, but what’s really cool is that protein molecules found therein can be used to demonstrate an evolutionary link to modern birds.
“I mean can you imagine pulling a bone out the ground after 68 million years and then getting intact protein sequences?” said [...]
It Ain’t the Size of the Ship
Titan has oceans. Oceans of liquid methane and/or ethane. Dig it.
Cassini’s camera last month imaged a large, irregular feature stretching 680 miles long with a surface area similar to the landlocked Caspian Sea. Its radar instrument swept over the feature’s northern tip and determined it likely contains liquid methane or ethane because of [...]
The Vulcan Science Directorate Has Determined That Time Travel Is Impossible
You can’t go home again. LiveScience attempts to rule out the possibility of travel backward through time, though their story links to scientists such as Dr. Michio Kaku who leave that door open. Feasibility is another matter, one which should keep your grandfather safe. Probably impossible is the verdict the story arrives at, eventually:
The [...]
Peek! I See You!
We’re not only finding planets circling nearby stars; we’ve begun to sample their atmospheres:
The study of one planet found hints of fine silicate-particle clouds. Research on the other planet found no chemical fingerprints for any of the molecules scientists were seeking.
“We had expected this tremendous signature of water … and it wasn’t there,” said the [...]
And How About the Holocaust?
Count on FOX to cough up a global-warming denier, pitting the expertise of attorney Christopher Horner against…well, against science.
…Fox News guest Christopher Horner “debunks the myths of global warming.” He says that humanity’s actions have not led to climate change and that receding glaciers are a result of “global cooling.”
“Climate changes, weather happens, always has, [...]
An Elaborate Deception
Comedian Bill Maher paid a visit to the Creation Museum in Cincinnati, frightening Christian publisher Ken Ham, who was unaware of just who was about to interview him.
…Ham called Maher’s visit an “elaborate deception.” He said the film crew asked for a one-on-one interview with Ham after a tour of the museum. After the tour, [...]
Heads Up
Decades of care-free littering of the spaceways has left a catastrophe waiting to happen in orbit:
Cascade warnings began as early as 1978. Mr. Kessler and his NASA colleague, Burton G. Cour-Palais, wrote in The Journal of Geophysical Research that speeding junk that formed more junk would produce “an exponential increase in the number of objects [...]
New Branch on the Family Tree
The discovery on Flores Island of prehistoric human skeletons—the so-called hobbits—ignited the usual raging anthropological debates. Here’s more support for the notion that the remains represented a new hominid species, and not stunted specimens of modern Homo sapiens, with whom they were contemporaneous:
In the latest salvo in a heated scientific shootout, an [...]
Kewl
The mapping of the Neanderthal genome is about one percent complete, and so far it appears that we are not descended from that species–nor is there yet any genetic sign of interbreeding.
All told, the team was able to put together about 1 million letters of Neanderthal DNA, according to the paper in Nature. The human [...]
Gratuitous Video Feed
MIT computer simulates engineering environment. It’s a lot cooler than it sounds.
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