politburo diktat 2.0

Sharp-Toothed Slug Found in Welsh Garden, Named New Species
Experts say a slug with blade-like teeth found in a Welsh garden is a new species, the BBC reported.
The creature was discovered in Cardiff last year and sucks in earthworms like spaghetti, the BBC said on Thursday. Another was found in Caerphilly.
Called the “ghost slug,” the Selenochlamys […]

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Secret ‘dino bugs’ revealed
It is like a magic trick - at first there is nothing and then it appears: a tiny insect unseen by any eye for 100 million years.
We are with Paul Tafforeau who is scrolling through images on his computer.
His pictures have been produced by a colossal X-ray […]

A whole dinosaur, with fossilized skin & soft tissue, a paleontologist’s Holy Grail:
Workers Uncovering Mummified Dinosaur
Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota’s state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.
Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the […]

Wow! This is either huge news or the biological equivalent of cold fusion:
“We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals.”

MADISON — Countering a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, a new study examining data from an […]

After the landmark case in Dover, Pennsylvania, finding that Intelligent Design was religion, not science, and then the Kansas school board election repudiating the IDiots, I thought perhaps we had turned the corner. But perhaps not.
Evolution and Texas - New York Times
Is Texas about to become the next state to undermine the teaching of evolution? […]

Pope: Creation vs. evolution an ‘absurdity’
Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,” saying that evolution can coexist with faith.
The pontiff, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said that while there […]

Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough
The discovery of a baby mammoth preserved in the Russian permafrost gives researchers their best chance yet to build a genetic map of a species extinct since the Ice Age, a Russian scientist said on Wednesday.
“It’s a lovely little baby mammoth indeed, found in perfect condition,” said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy […]

Giant Penguins May Have Roamed Peru
Giant penguins roamed what is now Peru more than 40 million years ago, much earlier than scientists thought the flightless birds had spread to warmer climes. Best known for their formal attire and presence in Antarctica, penguins today live in many islands in the Southern Hemisphere, some even near […]

Giant Bird-Like Dinosaur Fossil Found in China

Scientists have uncovered a huge surprise in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China: the fossil skeleton of an unusually robust bird-like dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago. The animal appeared to be a young adult 25 feet long and weighing 3,000 pounds and, if it had lived […]

Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did […]

Lab Notes : ‘Irreducible Complexity’ is Reducible After all
The intelligent design camp also argues that some biological structures are just too darn sophisticated to have evolved through random mutation and natural selection. They must therefore have been designed by an intelligent agent. In particular, since complex structures have lots of components, how could the components […]

I haven’t blogged about this, because it’s too much like shooting fish in a barrel.
But you gotta love the saddle on the triceratops. “Giddy-yap, there, Tri. Let’s mosey on over to Abel’s place and see if we can raise some Cain.”

Ars takes a field trip: the Creation Museum
To begin with, the museum presents real science […]

What I Think About Evolution - New York Times editorial
While the whole thing boils down to “I believe in my faith,” a few bits were noteworthy:
Early on, he lays down his maker, … his marker:
The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, […]

Aegyptopithecus zeuxis - New Fossil Tying Humans, Apes And Monkeys Is Full Of Surprises
A surprisingly complete fossil skull of an ancient relative of humans, apes and monkeys bears striking evidence that our remote ancestor was less mentally advanced than expected by about 29 million years ago.
The second and most intact cranium found of Aegyptopithecus […]

ScienceDaily: The Emerging Fate Of The Neandertals
For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neandertals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neandertals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them.
As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the […]