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Displaying Prediction Results 1 to 20 of 73
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100 MILLION YEARS OF FOSSIL SEX REVEALED
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100 MILLION YEARS OF FOSSIL SEX REVEALED, according to BBC News 18 June 2009. A new technique for examining the internal structure of fossils has enabled scientists to examine the reproductive organs of ostracod (tiny shellfish) fossils from the Santana Formation in Brazil. The fossils were embedded in rocks that also contained well preserved fish. Renate Matzke-Karasz of the Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany, used a technique called holotomography, to examine the fossils and found the ostr... Click here for more...
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ARE THERE VESTIGIAL ORGANS?
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One of our readers asks: “I read an evolutionist blog the other day on creation science arguments. One was on vestigial organs vs genetic loss. He said that creationists say there are no vestigial organs (which is true), but there are examples of things that do not fully function i.e. beetles of the same species; some have wings and some don't. Another example is the earwig. Some earwigs have wings but as far as I know they don't fly. They stay in moist undergrowth and under rock... Click here for more...
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AUSSIE LUNGFISH STUDY
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AUSSIE LUNGFISH STUDY reported in New Scientist, 11/9/99 p25 found the Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, uses the same protective proteins as those in human lungs. The only difference was that all cells in the fish lung lining made the protein whereas all other air breathing vertebrates have specialised cells for making these proteins. The researchers offered no explanation for where such proteins originated. Their only conclusion was they must have been preserved for ... Click here for more...
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AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES CAME FROM INDIA
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AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES CAME FROM INDIA, according to a report in ScienceDaily, 23 July 2009. Raghavendra Rao and colleagues involved in the Anthropological Survey of India project have analysed 966 complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from members of India’s “relic tribes” and found central Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic tribes shared genetic traits otherwise only found in Australian aborigines. Rao explained: "Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother and so allows us to accurately trace... Click here for more...
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BACTERIA EASE BELLY ACHES
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BACTERIA EASE BELLY ACHES, as reported in New Scientist, 10 Jan 2004, p16. Some chronic inflammatory intestinal diseases result from the intestinal lining not being able to turn off the inflammatory response after it has fought off infection by nasty bacteria. A harmless bacterium that lives in the intestines has been found to secrete a chemical signal that helps the lining of the intestines turn off inflammation after the bad bacteria have gone.
ED. COM. Scientists have known for ... Click here for more...
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BAD DOGS CAUSED BY BAD TRAINING
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BAD DOGS CAUSED BY BAD TRAINING, according to a study reported in Science Daily, 1 May 2009. A group of researchers at University of Córdoba (UCO), Spain have studied 711 dogs (354 males and 357 females), including 594 purebreds and 117 half-breeds, to see what factors were most associated with aggressive behaviour. The animals were a mix of breeds traditionally considered to be aggressive, such as Rottweiler and Bull Terrier, and breeds with reputations for mild temperament such as Dalmatian ... Click here for more...
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BEST CANDIDATE FOR HOMO ANCESTOR FOUN
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BEST CANDIDATE FOR HOMO ANCESTOR FOUND, according to BBC News 8 April 2010, and Science, vol. 328, p154 & 195, 9 April 2010. Palaeontologists in South Africa have found two partial skeletons of a new species of Australopithecus that “may be the best candidate yet for the immediate ancestor of our genus, Homo.” They have been given the name Australopithecus sediba and have been dated as being 2 million years old. The bones are from two individuals: a juvenile of estimated age 11 ... Click here for more...
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BIRD CLASSIFICATION PROBLEM
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BIRD CLASSIFICATION PROBLEM described in New Scientist 11 Dec 2004, p11. Matthew Fain and Peter Houde of New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA have studied the gene for a protein called beta fibrinogen in an attempt to work out evolutionary relationships between different birds. They looked at differences in the DNA code letters in the bf gene in 150 bird families and concluded that birds classified as "Neoaves" (literally "new birds") really consist of two subg... Click here for more...
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BIRDS MOVE BRANCHES IN EVOLUTIONARY TREE
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BIRDS MOVE BRANCHES IN EVOLUTIONARY TREE, according to New Scientist news, 26 June 2008, print edition 2 July 2008, and Science, vol. 320, p1763, 27 June 2008. Sushma Reddy, an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago and colleagues have worked out the DNA letter sequence in 19 regions of the genome of 169 bird species and then used them to construct a new evolutionary tree for birds. They were surprised by some of the results. For example: “falcons ar... Click here for more...
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CAMBRIAN LAND PLANTS
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CAMBRIAN LAND PLANTS fossils found in Grand Canyon and Tennessee rocks (USA), reports New Scientist, 18 Mar. 2000, p15. Geologist Paul Strother of Boston College, Massachusetts presented his Cambrian discoveries to recent meeting of Geological Society of America - fossil spores similar to present day liverworts. Land plant spores had previously been found in middle Ordovician rocks but new spores are believed (by evolutionists) to be 510 million years old, a time when most claim life was ... Click here for more...
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CHALLENGING EINSTEIN WITH SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY
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CHALLENGING EINSTEIN WITH "SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY," as reported in The Guardian, 11 Apr 2005, The Age, (Melbourne, Australia) and Cambridge (UK) Evening News 12 Apr 2005. Michael Murphy of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy has told a meeting of physicists at Warwick University that one of the foundational assumptions of Einstein's special theory of relativity, i.e. that the speed of light is unchanging, may be wrong. Ironically the physics conference he was speaking at was... Click here for more...
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CHIMP GENES 83% NON-HUMAN
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CHIMP GENES 83% NON-HUMAN, according to The International Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 Consortium’s report in Nature, vol. 429, p382, and Nature Science Update, 27 May 2004. The consortium carried out a detailed study of one chimpanzee chromosome, number 22, and compared it with the equivalent human chromosome, number 21. (The reason for comparing chimp chromosome 22 with human chromosome 21 is that chimps have 48 chromosomes and humans have 46, so equivalent gene sequences are not on the s... Click here for more...
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CHIMP GENOME SEQUENCE COMPLETED
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CHIMP GENOME SEQUENCE COMPLETED reported news@nature, ScienceNOW 31 Aug 2005, and Nature, vol 437, p69, 1 Sep 2005. The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, a group of 67 scientists working from 23 scientific institutions in five countries, have published the first draft of the complete chimpanzee genome and have begun to make comparisons with the human genome. The differences found between chimps and man were "35 million single nucleotide substitutions (DNA letter changes), 5 m... Click here for more...
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CHIMPS AND HUMANS TASTE DIFFERENT
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CHIMPS AND HUMANS TASTE DIFFERENT, according to a report in Nature, vol 440, p930, 13 April 2006. Every student of biology has probably participated in an experiment to see who can taste a chemical called PTC. The ability to taste this is genetically determined, with the tasting gene being dominant and the non-tasting being recessive. In 1939 three scientists Fisher, Ford and Huxley, tested apes for the ability to taste PTC and found the same variation in the ability to taste it. This was claime... Click here for more...
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CLIMATE GAFFES UNDERMINE CONFIDENCE IN SCIENCE
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CLIMATE GAFFES UNDERMINE CONFIDENCE IN SCIENCE, according to an article in the Telegraph 7 Mar 2010. The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) have issued statements saying the recent revelations from the e-mail and data leak from Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia could undermine the reputation of science as a whole. They are especially critical of Phil Jones and his colleagues failing to respond to legally binding requests for re... Click here for more...
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COW-A-SAURUS FOUND
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COW-A-SAURUS FOUND, according to reports in New Scientist News 15 Nov 2007 and PLoS One 21 Nov 2007. In 1997 a team led by Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago found a strange looking dinosaur in the Sahara, which they named "Nigersaurus taqueti". The creature's bones were rather fragile but Sereno and colleagues from various American Universities have studied the fossil in detail using CT scans as well as making casts. The animal had had extraordinary square jaws with 60 columns of t... Click here for more...
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CREATION BANNED IN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSES
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CREATION BANNED IN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSES, according to the Policies of the NonGovernment Schools Registration Board applicable to the registration and review of Nongovernment schools 2009/2010 of South Australia. Section B4 states: “The board requires the teaching of Science as an empirical discipline, focussing on inquiry, hypothesis, investigation, experimentation, observation and evidential analysis. The Board does not accept as satisfactory a science curriculum in a non-... Click here for more...
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CREATIONISM IN THE DOG HOUSE
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CREATIONISM IN THE DOG HOUSE as "St Bernard study casts doubt on Creationism”, claims an article in Manchester University News and Medical News Net 24 Oct 2007. Kris Klingerberg of the Faculty of Life Sciences, Manchester University, has studied the skulls of 47 St Bernard dogs and looked at how they have changed over the 120 years since the breed was first defined. He found that modern dogs have broader skulls, a more pronounced ridge over the eyes and a steeper angle between the nose and foreh... Click here for more...
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DARWINIAN SELECTION IN JAPANESE GUTS
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DARWINIAN SELECTION IN JAPANESE GUTS, according to articles in ScienceNOW 7 Apr 2010 and ABC (Australia) News in Science 8 April 2010. Mirjam Czjzek of Station Biologique de Roscoff, an offshore research facility in France has been studying a bacterium named Zobellia galactanivorans to find out how bacteria feed off seaweed. This bacterium has five genes for enzymes that can break down to the carbohydrates in seaweed. Czjzek and her colleagues then looked for genes for seaweed digestio... Click here for more...
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DEVOLUTION DEBATE HOTS UP
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DEVOLUTION DEBATE HOTS UP as opponents and many students take exception to our contention that the world isn’t evolving – it’s devolving. Both recent UK debates against Dr Steve Jones and Dr Jeff Ollerton met their claim that they had never heard of devolution, so it couldn’t be a scientific concept, so we must be making it up. The only place where devolution occurs is in British politics. A short check through the history books will establish that the word evolution already had wide use in poli... Click here for more...
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