Scientifica Phenomena

Eggshell DNA

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:42:00 +0000

One of the problems with studying extinct species is that... well, they're extinct. With fossils, especially, it is difficult to learn much about a creature besides what its skeleton tells us. This is why the idea of extracting fossil DNA is so exciting. With strands of fairly intact DNA, scientists could analyze different genes in an extinct creature, giving some clue to things like coloration, evolutionary lineage, etc. If there was enough really well preserved DNA, it could even be possible to bring extinct species back to life.

Elephant Bird Skeleton and Egg

There's a major problem with extracting DNA from fossils, though. DNA is an extremely fragile molecule; it does not take long for it to degrade once a creature dies. Even the best preserved fossil bones have partial DNA at best. While this does prevent a lot of ethical questions, like whether we should bring extinct creatures back if we could, it makes understanding those creatures much more challenging.

A recent article published in the Royal Society journal offers a new possibility in recovering fossil DNA, however. Scientists looked, not to bones, but to eggshell to try and extract DNA. They successfully recovered genetic material from the eggshell of Aepyomis, the elephant bird of Madagascar, for the first time. They were also able to get DNA from New Zealand duck and moa eggshells, and Australian emu and owl eggshells, the oldest of which was 19,000 years old. Because eggshells are pretty resistant to decomposition, it makes sense that they would preserve the DNA better than bone.

This is an exciting step towards perhaps getting a fuller understanding of extinct species. It's still no where near dinosaurs, but it provides a new way to look. It will be interesting to see where this sort of research takes the studies of zoology and paleontology in the future.

Source: Discovery Channel- Fossilized Eggshells Yield DNA

Expanding Earth "Theory": Going Against All Science

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:32:00 +0000

The proposed growth of the earth
going from bottom to top and showing
both hemispheres.
Image Credit: Michael Netzer

When I first came up with the idea of writing this post, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake.I would find some of the core claims being made by proponents of expanding earth "theory"*, break them apart, and then show the errors in their thought. As I started doing more and more research, I realized this was going to be impossible. Not because there aren't scientific responses to their claims, or even that their claims went beyond my knowledge of the subjects. No, the problem is in the sheer number of claims.

First, some quick background. From my research, expanding earth "theory" was first purposed in the late 1800's to explain the features and characteristics of the various continents (like how Africa and South America fit together). At the time, the idea was not well accepted, but was not considered crazy. This was still a few decades before Alfred Wagner purposed his idea of plate tectonics. Over time, we have gained an increasing understanding of how the earth works, to the point where plate tectonics is more or less a fact. In the last century, all of the new evidence has supported Wagner's theory, but some people are still trying to hang on to this failed idea.

As I mentioned before, if I tried to take their claims apart one by one this would quickly turn from a blog post into a book. Instead, I want to focus on some of the clues that should make you wonder if someone's ideas are based in reality.

The first big red flag is their dismissal of the scientific consensus. Could the scientific consensus be wrong? Sure. Saying that, though, we need to keep in mind that a scientific consensus is not something that is formed by a few guys at a bar. Many researchers, all trying to prove their own ideas over many years, work to see what model the evidence fits. Only after all this, and a repeated hashing of the evidence, is any consensus achieved. This happened very recently with the debate over what killed the dinosaurs. To think that you know better than the hundreds of geologists who study this stuff for a living, is simply arrogant. Neal Adams, maybe the most famous proponent of expanding earth theory, says that if he is right, "Everything, everything in science must change." At some point, as non-scientists, we have to step back as ask what is more plausible; that a loud comic book artist has come up with a revolutionary theory that does change all of science, or that the thousands of expert scientists worldwide understand their disciplines and the evidence for their models.

The other big clue is the use of what I have heard called "techno-babble." True scientists and science educators will often use a large vocabulary to try and explain confusing concepts. They use this vocabulary however, to try and be precise in their meaning. Scientific ideas can be inherently complex, so in explaining them the goal is to make them simpler. Proponents of non-scientific ideas will sometimes do the opposite. They will take a simple idea, and use complex language to explain it to make it sound more scientific. A perfect example of this can be found at www.expanding-earth.org. Near the bottom of the page there is a "Diagram of Omnidirectional Gravitational Pressure on exact center of any spherical body." This is a really complex way of saying, gravity pushes everything towards the center of mass. If the language is unnecessarily complex, it may be because they are trying to muddle a point instead of explaining it.

I recommend to anyone who wants to get experience looking into claims like this, look at these sites. See if you can find the flawed reasoning behind each argument. What evidence are they leaving out? If you have questions about a specific claim they are making, let us know and we can help you. We shouldn't just dismiss these ideas because they don't sound right or are unfamiliar. If we are going to dismiss them, it needs to be because there is no scientific support. In the end, nonsense dressed up with nice animations and fancy rhetoric, is still simply nonsense.

If you want to understand this issue better, I recommend you read the debate between Neal Adams and Stephen Novella, published at Neurologica.

*I cringe at the thought of calling it a theory in the scientific sense, and so found the quotation marks necessary.

Dynamic Earth: An Abundance of Earthquakes?

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:49:00 +0000

It's only the beginning of March, but 2010 already seems like a terrible year for earthquakes. First, on January 12, there was the 7.0 earthquake just off the coast of Haiti. Then Japan was hit with a 7.0 earthquake. Last Saturday, Chile was hit with an 8.8 earthquake, the fifth strongest ever recorded. And just today 5.9 earthquake occurred in Turkey. It's causing a lot of people to wonder, "What's going on?"

Despite the amount of news coverage for earthquakes all of a sudden, though, this year isn't really more severe than any other. Earthquakes are quite a common event. According to the USGS, there is a 100% chance of some magnitude of an earthquake occurring somewhere on planet Earth every day.

The magnitude of the earthquakes occurring this year is not out of the ordinary, either. The annual number of earthquakes, also according to the USGS, is:

Magnitude Average Annually

   8 and higher    1 ¹

   7 - 7.9    17 ²

   6 - 6.9    134 ²

   5 - 5.9    1319 ²

   4 - 4.9    13,000
   (estimated)

   3 - 3.9    130,000
   (estimated)

   2 - 2.9    1,300,000
   (estimated)

¹ Based on observations since 1900.
² Based on observations since 1990.

Magnitude	Average Annually
8 and higher	1 ¹
7 - 7.9	17 ²
6 - 6.9	134 ²
5 - 5.9	1319 ²
4 - 4.9	13,000 (estimated)
3 - 3.9	130,000 (estimated)
2 - 2.9	1,300,000 (estimated)

The only thing that makes this year uncommon is how much damage to people earthquakes have done this year. Fortunately for us, most of the severe earthquakes don't hit populated areas. This year, that hasn't been the case. Over 200,000 people were killed in the Haitian earthquake, and thousands to millions more were affected. The Chilean earthquake killed around 200. It also affected the rotation of the entire planet, shortening the length of the day by 1.26 milliseconds. There are 57 confirmed deaths from the earthquake today in Turkey. This year is no worse than normal for earthquakes. It is only the impact of these earthquakes that is more noticeable than usual. The world is not shaking itself to bits; it's just moving, same as it always does.

Source: USGS Earthquakes
More information on earthquakes in general

UPDATE: Dinosaur Debate: What Killed the Dinosaurs?

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:48:00 +0000

The question of what wiped the dinosaurs out has been around since... well, pretty much since dinosaurs were first identified. I discussed some of the theories previously, here.

Science, however, being the ever-changing field that it is, has now given us a solid consensus on this issue. Just yesterday, an international panel of paleontologists announced that it was, indeed, an asteroid impact that lead to the K-T boundary extinction. 41 top researchers from around the globe reviewed 20 years worth of evidence pointing to the cause of this mass extinction. Their conclusion? Approximately 65.5 million years ago, a meteor 9.32 miles (15 km) across slammed into the Gulf of Mexico just off of Chicxulub, in Mexico. This lead the a general global catastrophe. There were huge forest fires; tremendous earthquakes, which dwarf the recent ones in Haiti and Chile; continental landslides; massive tsunamis; and so much material was shot into the atmosphere that the planet was plunged into a global winter.

So, why an asteroid? What about the volcanic activity at the Deccan traps? The paleontolgists had several lines of evidence for this decision.

Shocked quartz, from Chicxulub

Shocked quartz: This is a rare form of quartz, that exists only at nuclear explosions and meteor impact. It is found world-wide through the layer of ash that marks the K-T boundary. This is a huge failing for the volcanic idea. There is simply no way any amount of eruption would create shocked quartz.
Iridium layer: In that same layer of ash that the shocked quartz is found in, there is a huge spike in the iridium content. Iridium is a very rare element on the earth's surface, but shows up in asteroids fairly commonly. Some is also found in the earth's mantle, but not enough for volcanism to cause such a large spike.
Speed of the extinction: In geologic time, the K-T boundary is an eyeblink. Dinosaurs and their compatriots, which had survived for 160 million years, were just gone. Poof. No more. Extreme volcanic activity would have significant short-term effects on climate, but it would have taken longer. The researchers found little evidence that many Mesozoic species were on the decline before the asteroid struck.

All this leads up to one conclusion: the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction was caused by an asteroid. The evidence is overwhelming, especially upon reevaluation. One question, answered. Only infinitely many more to go.

Source: Science Daily- Asteroid Killed Off the Dinosaurs, Says International Scientific Panel

Renovations

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:42:00 +0000

As you can see, we've been doing some renovations to the Scientifica webpage lately. We've got a whole new template, and several new pages, such as our "What is Science?" page and our "Participate in Science" page. We may be making a few more tweaks and changes over the next few days. Please let us know if you find any bugs or glitches, if you want the old layout back, etc. You can contact us via email, using the links to the left, or using the comments section below.

Also, we plan to begin posting on a more regular schedule here shortly.

Thanks!

New "What is Science?" Page

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:26:00 +0000

We just created a new page for the "What is Science?" link at the top of the page. This is still a bit of a test, but hopefully we will be coming out with more permanent pages soon. Let us know what you think, all feedback is greatly appreciated.

When I've Changed My Mind

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:03:00 +0000

It is almost redundant to say that, as humans, we like to be comfortable. Part of being comfortable is often being comfortable in our beliefs. Each one of us has a way we think the world works. We will sometimes even incorporate parts of our beliefs into our concept of ourselves. This can make it extremely difficult for us to be open to changing our minds. Unfortunately, we are better at justifying our beliefs than at changing them. This is sometimes referred to as cognitive dissonance, which is a topic for another post. Here I want to talk about something more personal.

I enjoy challenging people's ideas. I am not afraid of confrontation, and I think this opens up dialogue that would otherwise never come up. I make a point of telling people that I will change my mind with the evidence, but it's not easy. So I wanted to show an example of when I changed my mind.

I used to be a huge supporter of herbal medicine. I would defend supplements like Airborne and Cold Snap for treating minor illness. I was never to the point where I would decline science-based medicine, but I thought the less processed it was, the better. Alternative medicine is really popular within my family, and I picked it up from them. I didn't really see a difference between alternative medicine and science-based medicine.

For me, the major change came when I learned how science-based medicine modalities are evaluated. The idea that different forms of treatment should be tested to see if they are effective and safe just made sense to me. I then learned that there is no research to support the claims of alternative medicine and they are not properly regulated.

I wanted to write this article for two reasons. First is to show that I don't expect anymore than I am willing to do. If we truly want to find truth in the world, we need to be able to admit when we are wrong. I always challenge people to prove me wrong, and I will follow through if anyone can find the evidence. The second is something I direct more at skeptics. I did not change my mind because someone just came up to me with research papers proving me wrong. I changed my mind because I understood how to evaluate the evidence. I think we need to spend more time teaching the skills of critical thinking, and maybe less time preaching our conclusions.

What is Science? A Musical Take

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:47:00 +0000

Recently, there's being a series of autotuned videos going around. While autotuning isn't all that new, these are unique because they are made up of clips of various scientists and skeptics speaking about what they know best: science. A new one was just released, titled "The Poetry of Reality." It addresses the same question we often tackle here at Scientifica Phenomena. It's beautifully done, so... enjoy.

The other videos, if you're interested, can be found at Symphony of Science.

Practical Science: Spectroscopy

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:25:00 +0000

A few times in the past I have written about how astronomers use light in various ways to learn about objects millions of miles away. Spectroscopy is simply one of the fundamentals of astronomy, but the other day I had someone ask me what the more everyday uses for spectroscopy are. Why is spectroscopy important to the everyday person? As we sat and talked, we came up with more and more ways it's used.

Spectroscopy is the study of light. In astronomy, we use it to find everything from composition, to temperature, to velocity, to extrasolar planets, and the list goes on. But how does this affect us? One of the first things that came to mind was communication. Our cell phones use radio waves to communicate with cell towers. These are the same radio waves we use to study the earliest moments of the universe. The microwaves that we use to cook our food are also part of the radio spectrum.

Healthcare is another area where examples are plentiful. X-rays and CT scans are both used in hospitals on a regular basis. They are also used to help us understand some of the most energetic places in the universe. You can get a sunburn because of ultraviolet light that penetrates our atmosphere. This same form of light gives us insight into the structure of the clouds of Venus.

Gamma rays are the highest energy form of light and are used by geologists to find minerals or other materials under the earths surface. Infrared, a much lower energy form of light, is used by weather satellites to help us know the forecast tomorrow.

All of these technologies are things we have come to rely on, and none of them would be possible without this obscure part of physics.

What is Science? (Flaws of the Mind)

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:33:00 +0000

One of things that is of great interest to scientists and skeptics alike is how we fool ourselves. We like to think of our mind as a type of recorder that takes in what we experience and feel. In many ways, this is not a bad analogy, but it is easy for us fall victim to the faults of this recorder. These are faults that we need to be aware of if we want to avoid them

If you ever have any doubts that our minds can be fooled, see a magic trick. The entire profession of magic and illusion takes advantage of these faults. This video by psychologist Richard Wiseman is a great example.

This video is a great example of how easy it is for our brains to fall prey to illusions. This could be the cause of many UFO and ghost sightings. Think of times in your own life where you might have thought you saw something, but it turned out to be something else.

Science is very aware of this fact, this is why there are standards for the evidence it will accept. Anecdotal evidence is the most obviously affected, and is not considered any more than a starting point for scientific inquiry. One method that is used for correcting this is the requirement that a test be repeatable. For any result you come up with, someone halfway around the world should be able to repeat under the same conditions. Paranormal researchers often complain that they are being picked on by mainstream researchers. There is a lot that goes into this, deserving a post all to its own. The bottom line is that they have never developed a replicable experiment, showing any psychic ability or connection of any kind.

Whenever we look at the world, we need to be careful when deciding what is true. This doesn't mean that we can't trust anything we see, but we need to give any sight that appears miraculous careful consideration. The fact that our minds can be tricked is something we must be careful never to forget, but we shouldn't let it stop us in our quest to explore reality.

Dynamic Earth: Introduction to Weather

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:37:00 +0000

Where I grew up, there was a common saying regarding the weather: "If you don't like it, wait a few minutes. It will change." While not precisely true, it did seem that the weather changed quite a lot. It could be snowing in the morning and 65 and sunny by the afternoon. We've all experienced many forms of weather, and so have a general understanding of what it is. However, there are more precise ways to define the weather.

What is weather?
Weather is defined by meteorologists as the state of the atmosphere at a given point in time. Typically, they are only referring to the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. The weather is determined by 7 main factors: air temperature, air pressure, cloud type, precipitation type, precipitation amount, wind speed, and wind direction. As an example, the full weather report of where I live right now is: 29.8^o F; 30.02 in pressure; cumulus clouds; light snow; up to 2 in; 1.0 mph winds, from the south-east.

Weather vs. Climate
Weather is not the same thing as climate. This is a really common misconception with all the news about "global warming" and "climate change." Weather is local and short term. It is snowing here right now, but it was sunny yesterday. Also, it's probably not snowing all over the Midwest, just here. Climate, on the other hand, is long-term and broad, covering regions to the entire planet. Thus, on average, over much of the planet, annual temperatures over the past 100 years have been getting warmer. A freak snowstorm does not mean climate change is not occurring, nor is it necessarily caused by climate change. The two are related, but are not directly connected. So, as much as people like to claim that this bitter cold winter disproves global warming, that's simply not how it works.

That's basically all there is to weather. It's a local set of atmospheric conditions. For sounding so simple, and even boring, however, there's a lot of unpredictability in weather, which can lead to some pretty terrifying phenomena.

More on weather.

Practical Science: Shooting Mosquitoes with Lasers

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I think that there is a disconnect between science and everyday people. To try and help bridge this gap, I want to start writing more articles about how science is effecting us everyday.

Malaria killed about one million people in 2006. A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds, and more than half the world's population is at risk. Malaria is preventable and treatable with modern medicine, but with such a large problem we need to use multiple approaches to try and fight it. This is why I am such a big fan of this work by Intellectual Ventures.

Intellectual Ventures is a group that first gained my attention with their awesome quarter shrinker. This is still one of the coolest pieces of technology I have ever seen, but they didn't stop there. They have teamed up with Bill Gates to implement a new way to fight Malaria.

Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. So, one way you can prevent the spread of malaria is get rid of the mosquitoes. We are not talking about total eradication of all mosquitoes, but prevent them from getting into heavily populated areas. "How might you do this?" you might ask? With a laser, of course. The system uses a camera to identify the mosquitos, and then shoots them midair with a laser. This laser is powerful enough to kill a mosquito, but still harmless to human tissue. The identification system is one of the coolest parts of this setup.

When an invading insect is detected, our software identifies it by training a nonlethal laser beam on the bug and using that illumination to estimate the insect’s size and also to measure how fast its wings are beating. Using this method, the system can not only distinguish among mosquitoes, butterflies, and bumblebees, but it can even determine whether a mosquito is male or female! (Females are significantly larger than males and have slower wingbeats.) This is useful because only female mosquitoes bite humans.

And after one unlucky bug gets identified, it gets zapped. The bottom video is by far the best, but the others are still well worth watching. This is not totally new technology (although I can't find exactly when it first came out). What Intellectual Ventures is trying to do is make it cost effective. If they succeed I could imagine a "forcefield" protecting small towns or even just clinics from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. This is a really cool invention, and is a great example of a creative solution to a huge problem.

Bad Science: The Argument From Final Consequences

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:01:00 +0000

In many of the articles I read supporting non-scientific ideas or in informal debates, one extremely common logical fallacy I run across is the argument from final consequences. I see it often enough that I think it deserves it own post so you can try to avoid this logical pitfall.

There are two main ways this fallacy is usually presented, but both share a common trait. They basically invert cause and effect. One way this is done is to say that if someone benefited from X, that person caused X. You can imagine in a murder investigation that if someone benefited highly from the death, they will be a suspect. The fallacy is to say that because they benefited, they must have caused it. Motivation is separate from actually committing the crime. There is a reality to the world that coincidences happen. Everyone, and in particular politicians, will try to capitalize on these coincidences, but that doesn't mean they caused them.

The other way this fallacy often comes up is to say the implications of an idea determine its truth. An example is 'Fairies must exist, because that would make the world more interesting.' Whether or not they would make the world more interesting is completely irrelevant to the question of their existence. This is the equivalent of arguing that gravity can't exist, because flying is fun. One of the most common contexts you will hear this agreement is that evolution must be wrong because otherwise life has no meaning and their would be no morality.

I should mention again that just because someone uses bad logic to defend their point, doesn't mean that their conclusion is wrong. All it means is that particular argument does not support that conclusion. I have heard people on both sides of different issues make poor logical arguments, so you need to evaluate each argument on its own merits. Bad logic should however, serve as a red flag to see if any of their other arguments hold up to strong scrutiny.

Darwin Day

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Today, February 12, marks the 201th birthday of Charles Darwin. His landmark work, On the Origin of Species, revolutionized biology, and the scientific view of how the diversity of life that exists today came into being. Whether dealing with biology, genetics, paleontology, psychology, or even philosophy, the idea of evolution via natural selection comes into play.
Natural selection is an elegantly simple idea: All populations have some amount of variation in it. Most of these differences are neutral; some are harmful; other provide an advantage. Neutral variation comes and goes. Harmful variations die out. Beneficial variations become more common. Over time, these variations add up, causing significant changes and eventually fundamentally changing a species. It makes a lot of logical sense. It is a common legend that when Thomas Henry Huxley, a contemporary of Darwin and self-proclaimed "Darwin's bulldog," first read it, he asked how he didn't see it first, it seemed so clear and obvious. It is this clarity and the thoughtfulness Darwin put into The Origin of Species that has allowed the theory to remain with relatively minor revision through the past 150 years.

Because of Origin and the theory of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin is now a name found throughout science. Another interesting note on him is that he wasn't the top of his class. In fact, at university, he was a little below the average. But he had a dogged persistence that shows through his drafts of Origin. Once he hit on that idea, which seemed so simple, he spend nearly 30 years perfecting it and finding examples, so as to make it as clear to anyone else as it was to him. He's a great example of how really anyone can make a big contribution to science, without being the valedictorian or the nerd at school. Science is great because, in its simplest form, it only requires a question, an open mind, and a determination to learn how the world works.

More on Darwin Day.
Read Darwin's publications.

Volcanic Lightning Show

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:55:00 +0000

Lightning and volcanoes are two of my personal favorite forces of nature. Both are capable of a lot of destruction, and are pretty unpredictable. A combination of the two would be terrifying, and spectacular. Perhaps something like this:

What is picture shows is a potentially new type of lightning, detected over the Redoubt Volcano in Alaska. The bolts you see are very small and very fast: each is only about a yard (3 feet) long and lasts only a couple milliseconds (for reference, a human eye blink lasts around 350 milliseconds). Even cooler, the lightning only occurs during the volcanic eruption. In fact, it is one of three types of volcanic lightning: these "tiny sparks", a "natural fireworks" (large, spectacular bolts), and an intermediate type, between the other two. The bigger bolts are caused when water and volcanic ash meet, causing a sudden thunderstorm. How the smaller sparks form, however, is still unknown. Now that they have been confirmed, researchers know how to look for them, and will be able to gain more data, which will in turn help us learn what causes this new volcanic lightning.

Source: National Geographic- New Lightning Type Found Over Volcano

Creationists Misuse New Research on the Origins of Life

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:22:00 +0000

Last week we reported on a new hypothesis on how life originally arose on the Earth. The next day the creationists took the story, and twisted it. The new research argued that instead of life arising in a "soup" of organic powered by the sun and lighting, it happened in deep sea vents. The research is very interesting and I highly recommend reading it.

Creationists are notorious for twisting scientific results for their own purposes. In this case they have made two main arguments.

Anyway, the lame retreat from a stance previously thumped with tremendous vigor sounds Pythonesque but no, a quick Internet search reveals it’s actually from Get Smart. Along with “Missed it by that much” and “Sorry about that, Chief,” “Would you believe…” was a repeated line from the classic 1960s TV show. It always introduced Agent Maxwell Smart’s attempt to climb down from an earlier, bolder claim in favor of increasingly pitiable ones: “I happen to be an expert in karate, Judo and tempura. Would you believe that I can break eight boards with one karate chop? No? Would you believe three boards? Would you believe a loaf of bread?”

This is a gross misinterpretation of the story. Scientist are not backtracking to a simpler story, quite the opposite. I don't even necessarily agree that this hypothesis is less complex. Science works by overturning bad ideas with better ones. We were not backtracking when we added relativity to Newtonian gravity. This new idea actually shares many commonalities with the old "soup" model. They both agree that life arose in a organically rich body of water, with some sort of energy source to power the chemical reactions. The only real difference is where in the water, and what the energy source was.

The other argument they make is one based on information.

The soup-spilling team writing in BioEssays concentrates on the source of energy needed to power life into existence. Was it from UV radiation, as J.B.S. Haldane theorized in 1929? Or from a hydrothermal vent? This overlooks a much trickier problem: the source not of the relevant energy but the relevant biological information.

This is a old argument that has been thoroughly debunked. To begin with, this a glaring argument from ignorance. They are making the claim, 'we don't know what caused it now, it is therefore a creator.' In addition to that, it is based on a false premise. Dr. Zachary Moore has covered this in great detail on his podcast Evolution 101. There is also a short article on talkorigins.org.

It should also be pointed out that this is a new idea and not yet part of any scientific consensus. I'm sure that it will take many more years of research before we will have anything like a solid answer. That is why science is exciting: there are always new ideas and none of those ideas are beyond scrutiny.

UPDATE: Dinosaurs: Now in Color

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:10:00 +0000

Right on the tail of Sinosauropteryx, researchers have determined the colors of a second feathered dinosaur. A team from Yale took a fossil of Anchiornis huxleyi, a four-winged feathered dinosaur from China, and studied it in precise detail. Like the team studying Sinosauropteryx, the Yale team looked at the microscopic melanosomes in the fossil feathers. Unlike the Sinosauropteryx team, however, they looked at every single feather, to determine the full coloration of the dinosaur. They came up with this:

It's amazing. Between Sinosauropteryx and Anchiornis, we have a far more interesting view of dinosaurs than the drab greens and grays used only a decade back. It's also another piece of evidence tying birds back to their dinosaurian ancestors. It makes sense that many birds are brightly colored, if the dinosaurs were too. I expect we'll only see even more discoveries that solidify the colors of feathered dinosaur. I can't wait to see what we find.

Read the original post
Source: Science Daily: Dinosaur had Vibrant Colors, Microscopic Fossil Clues Reveal

A New Idea on the Origin of Life

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:43:00 +0000

We don't know how life first appeared on Planet Earth. It is perhaps the biggest scientific unknown. If we knew how life developed, then we could a) find it more easily and b) create simple bacterium ourselves, allowing us to really watch the early evolution of life. Unfortunately, there is pretty much no record of the very first life forms, as there are few, if any, rocks around from 4+ billion years ago. There are still many theories as to the origin of life, however, including a brand new one.

The most commonly accepted hypothesis of how life first came into being is a "primordial soup." In early tide pools and muddy puddles, there would have been amino acids floating about. These are the building blocks of proteins, which in turn are the building block that make life possible. We have found asteroids with amino acids on them, so a "soup" of them on early Earth is certainly not out of the question. These amino acids could have just bumped around, randomly sticking to each other as sunlight beamed down, gradually building into simple, prokaryotic bacteria. Others have suggested that lightning could spark amino acids into life. In fact, most ideas on how life first appeared are variations on this "primordial soup" concept.

New research, however, suggests that there just isn't enough energy to explain how life began in such a soup. Instead, they propose that deep sea vents were where life first showed up. The team found an interesting composition of chemicals on some of these vents: a membrane, with a gradient of protons. This is basically the same mechanism that organic cells use, in a process known as "chemiosmosis." Every organism, from the simplest bacterium to an oak tree to us, uses chemiosmosis. Therefore, the team suggests that it was a feature present in the first common ancestor, from which everything else developed, and which it first learned at the geothermal vents at the bottom of the sea. It's an interesting idea, and one that makes a lot of logical sense. Perhaps, with more research along these lines, we can finally find the answer to how life began.

Source: Science Daily-New research rejects 80-year theory of 'primordial soup' as the origin of life

First Ever Interplanetary Collision Witnessed by Hubble

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:10:00 +0000

Between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt, a large collection of small rocks left over from the formation of the solar system. The vast number of objects within the asteroid belt has led astronomers to predict that collisions between asteroids should be relatively common. For the first time, astronomers may have found one of these impacts.

At first glance, this debris tail looks similar to that of a comet. As they approach the sun, comets (which are mostly made of various ices) will give off splendid tails as the ices warm up and turn to gasses. However, the crucial difference is in the X-shaped pattern in the close up image. You see a clear difference from these images of a fragmenting comet (also imaged by Hubble). "This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," says principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. There are also other inconsistencies with the comet hypothesis. One such example is that the orbit of this object (creatively named P/2010 A2) is much closer to the sun than we would expect for a comet made up of ice.

So, if it's not a comet, that opens up the possibility of it being a high energy collision. Speeds in such a collision are estimated to be close to 11,000 miles per hour, five times faster than a rifle bullet! "If this interpretation is correct, two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight," says Jewitt. So right now, the evidence is strong that we have fulfilled every little boys dream, watching rocks crash together at high speeds in space.

Source: HubbleSite
Collision Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)
Fragmentation Image Credit:NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (APL/JHU), M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)

Dinosaurs: Now in Color

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:05:00 +0000

A few months back, I talked about how they had found evidence of iridescence in fossil feathers. At the time, that was a huge step forward. We still didn't know what colors dinosaurs were, but we could find out something from microscopic structures in well-preserved feathers. Now, we've got something even cooler. Using a similar technique, scientists have discovered that at least one type of dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx, had ginger-colored feathers and a striped tail.

To the right is a picture of the Sinosauropteryx fossil. You can see the banding on the tail pretty clearly. But how did scientists determine that the dark bands were ginger? Using an SEM (a scanning electron microscope), they searched for tiny structures called melanosomes. The shape of a melanosome determines color. Dark colors - dark brown, black, and grey - are determined by long, skinny melanosomes. Lighter colors, primarily russet and ginger, are characterized by ball-shaped melanosomes. In Sinosauropteryx feathers, the melanosomes are primarily the round variety. It's a really cool discovery, that gives paleoartists the chance to draw this:

It's not just an educated guess as to this dinosaur's color. This is most likely what Sinosauropteryx really looked like. This discovery raises the possibility of examining other fossil feathers (and perhaps even fossil skin?) to learns, once and for all, what color the dinosaurs were.

Source: BBC News- Dinosaur had ginger feathers

A New Page in the Life of Spirit, The Martian Rover

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:38:00 +0000

Spirit and Opportunity have been exploring the surface of Mars for over 6 years. They have undoubtedly been one of the most successful missions to Mars, ever. For the last few months, Spirt has been stuck at a location called Troy. And now it looks as though Spirit may not be leaving.

Over the last few weeks, scientists have been working desperately to try and free Spirit from Troy. Right now it is sitting on the top of rock, with its wheels sinking into the regolith*. All attempts to extract the rover so far have failed (there's as of yet no tow trucks on Mars), and scientists are running out of time before the Martian winter arrives. Temperatures are expected to drop to -40 degrees (Celsius and Fahrenheit), meaning Spirit will only survive if it has the energy to run its heaters. Just as the sun gets lower on the horizon during the winter here on Earth, the same thing happens on Mars. Spirit is going to have to get its solar panels pointing towards the sun in order to generate enough energy to survive. "Getting through the winter will all come down to temperature and how cold the rover electronics will get," said John Callas, project manager at JPL for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity. "Every bit of energy produced by Spirit's solar arrays will go into keeping the rover's critical electronics warm, either by having the electronics on or by turning on essential heaters."

If Spirit does survive, it will by no means just be a stuck piece of metal on Mars. Just as the Phoenix Mars lander was able to teach us much about current and past conditions on Mars, Spirit will just become a stationary science lab. One nice thing is that, of all the spots Spirit could have been stuck, Troy is quite a interesting one scientifically. There is a wide range of sediments and minerals that appear to be the product of a hydrothermal vent on ancient Mars. There is even the possibility of finding out if Mars has a liquid core by closely monitoring the tilt of Mars rotation. "There's a class of science we can do only with a stationary vehicle that we had put off during the years of driving," said Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University and principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity. "Degraded mobility does not mean the mission ends abruptly. Instead, it lets us transition to stationary science."

Spirit is not dead yet and its twin rover, Opportunity seems to be finding cool rock after cool rock. These rovers are still pouring out scientific discoveries. This intrepid duo have lasted more than 20 times their expected lifetimes, and have made tremendous finds into the history of Mars. And they still keep going.

Image taken by spirit on sol (a Martian day) 2154
Credit: NASA/JPL

*Cool word for dirt in places that don't have life (basically ground up rock)

Weird Hills on the Surface of Titan

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:47:00 +0000

Titan is one of the one of the most exciting places in our solar system. This moon of Saturn has liquid methane playing the role of water on its surface, and water ice playing the role of solid rock. We are just beginning to understand the dynamics at work on this moon, in part because it is shrouded in a thick methane atmosphere. This image was taken on December 28th, 2009 and is giving sicentists new puzzle to solve.

The lines you see in the lower left of the image are rifts similar to features called corona on Venus. On Venus, we think they are caused by heat within the planet that puts stress on the rock. Straight features like this could also be created by surface activity like wind or rainfall.

The star-shaped feature to the right also points to some sort of activity happening in this area. “This star-shaped pattern of the hills indicates something significant happening in the middle of the star,” said Steve Wall of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a Cassini scientist on the radar team. “It might be caused by tectonic forces, such as the forces that pull the crust of a planet apart, or rainfall that leads to erosion, or an ice intrusion like a dike.”

Scientists don't have any answers yet, but either answer would be exciting. If this was caused by rain, it gives us a better understanding of how liquid methane shapes the surface of Titan. If on the other hand it is caused by some sort of internal heat, it raises all new questions on what the inside of Titan is like. We will just have to wait as Cassini continues to unveil this exciting world.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Puppies for Evolution

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:17:00 +0000

Most of us are familiar primarily with domesticated animals. They are food, pack animals, and pets. Dogs are one of the species that was domesticated relatively early, and now numerous breeds of dog exist, to fit pretty much every taste. Domestication has an interesting interplay with evolution. Far from reducing the pressures on a species, it can create new ones, leading to some pretty profound changes.

Before we can look at that, though, we have to understand how evolution works. Evolution, in its most basic form, is the process by which species change over time. Its driving mechanism is natural selection, or "survival of the fittest." In a given group of individuals, there are going to be differences. Some of these differences help an individual; others give it a disadvantage; most don't do anything at all. A great example of this is the peppered moth of England. Some individuals were a light color, matching the bark on the lichen trees where the moths live. Others were a sooty gray. Before the Industrial Revolution, the dark moths were pretty rare; birds could see and eat them pretty easily. During and afterwards, however, the soot on the trees gave the dark moths the advantage, and the light moths became rare. Now, as the pollution levels have fallen, the light moths are making a comeback. It's the classic example of natural selection in action.

Now, I'm sure by this point you're trying to figure out why I started with puppies when I was just going to talk about moths. I'm getting back to puppies now. A new study suggests that selection is well at work in domestic dogs, to an extent that doesn't occur in nature. This is artificial selection, rather than natural selection. See, domestic dogs don't face the same pressures as their cousins, wolves and coyotes. They don't have to chase down live prey and eat tough, raw meat. There is no shortage of easily accessible food, water, and shelter. Therefore, domestic dogs aren't playing the game of "survival of the fittest;" rather, they are playing "survival of the cutest." The study specifically looked at skull shapes of various carnivores, including several breeds of domestic dog. The results are impressive: it turns out a cat and a walrus have more in common, head-shape wise, than a collie does with a Pekingese. Because people are the main pressure selecting for characteristics, rather than practicality, a breed like a pug can survive as a pet. In the wild, a pug would be unable to breathe, eat, or avoid anything that wanted to eat it. Cute? Maybe. Practical? No.

The pressures on dogs, and other domestic organisms, are an interesting study in evolution. Freed from the very limiting pressures of natural selection, these creatures can develop characteristics that would be totally impractical in the wild. From this diversity, humans pick the characteristics they like best, and breed those specifically, while other characteristics are deemed ugly, and are selected against. The process is fast, and easy to observe. This artificial selection is a proof-of-concept experiment for natural selection and the Darwinian model of evolution.

Source: Science Daily- "'Survival of the Cutest' Proves Darwin Right"
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation, Michael Keller (Amazon)

Scientific Unknowns: The Mind-Brain Dualism

scientifica.admin@gmail.com (Ali Marie) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Of the many interesting questions presented by psychology, the idea of the brain vs. the mind has some of the greatest impacts. The idea's been around for a long time: both Sigmund Freud and Emil Kraepelin proposed a difference between the mind and the brain, along with ways to study it. Even before that, Greek philosophers pointed out the problem of the relationship between the mind and the body.

The dualism basically states that, while the brain and the mind are clearly connected, the two are separate entities. The brain is easy to define. It is the physical bundle of neurons inside a person's head. It is capable of sending chemical signals to the rest of the body, allowing for movement and other functions. Even the simplest animals have some sort of brain. The mind, however, is not as easily explained. It is usually conceptualized as the consciousness, the "I" of a person. It is not something present, as far as we know, in any other species. There appears to be a connection between the two: for instance, if a person sustains brain damage from a disease or an injury, their mind also changes. They may have a different personality, lose memory, experience different emotions. But, research has not yet show exactly how the two are connected.

The impacts of this question are huge, however. It is a scientific, religious, philosophical, and practical question. It leads to questions such as these: If the mind/consciousness/soul is separate from the physical brain, then can it persist after death? If it is not separate, then is there even such a thing as a soul? Among the scientific community, there isn't really a consensus. According to a study by the University of Edinburgh and the University of Liege, over 1/3 of medical professionals regarded the mind and brain as separate entities. Despite this, however, in the same study a majority thought the mind and brain were not separable. Thus, there are really only questions at this point, rather than answers.

As David Tresan puts it, "In light of the prevailing scientific bias toward reductionism, how then are we to think about the relationship between mind and brain without on one hand simply reducing the former to the latter or without on the other invoking dualism and thereby abandoning altogether the quest for any such relationship?" In other words, how can we think about the mind and the brain as separate, yet connected? Only further advances in neuroscience and psychology will tell.

Sources: Mind-Body Problem: New Approaches
Articles below found through PubMed
"150 years of Freud-Kraepelin Dualism", Katharina Trede
"Dualism Persists in the Science of Mind", Athena Demertzi et al.
"Jungian metaphychology and neurobiological theory", David I. Tresan (full article found through EBSCO)

3 Ways You Can Support Science and Reason (for Free)

Scientifica.Carver@gmail.com (Carver) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:39:00 +0000

I have been passionate about science for many years now. Stemming from this passion is my desire to be involved in active science, and spread the amazing world science reveals. While donations can always be used help to spread good critical thinking, there are many things you can do even if you are strapped for cash.

1. Talk about it

It may not seem like much, but one of the best things you can do is just to share your passion with friends and family. If you see a science story that catches your eye, tell people about it. People are generally interested in science to varying degrees, so share what you know. The more people are talking about science, the more it will be a part of the public conciseness.

2. Join a Citizen Science Project

There are lots of projects out there where all the scientists need is a little of your time and help. A perfect example of this is the Galaxy Zoo project which I have mentioned several times before. Because of their success they have now expanded into Zooniverse. This includes 4 research projects you can help with watching everything form supernova to our own sun. You could also help with the mystery of the star Epsilon Aurigae with Citizen Sky. These are just a few examples from my own field of interest, but you can find projects across many other disciplines with just a little looking.

3. Volunteer at a Local Science Museum

This is a really fun way to spread excitement about science. There is nothing better than showing a child a simple demonstration and having their eyes light up. This is also a great way to meet other people who share your interest. As you teach people about science, you will probably find your own knowledge of science growing. Teaching any subject is a great way to solidify, and expand, on your own understanding.

These are by no means the true end to the list, but I want to keep it short for now. Maybe I will expand on this list in the future. In the meantime, feel welcome to put anything you have done to support science in the comments below.