We finally have a vaccine for Malaria thanks to science. No god in sight.
For Joe Cohen, a GlaxoSmithKline research scientist who has spent 24 years trying to create the world’s first malaria vaccine, Tuesday, October 18, 2011 goes down as a fabulous day. “There were many ups and downs, and moments over the years when we thought ‘Can we do it? Should we continue? Or is it really [...]
Those Motherf*cking Piranhas Can Talk to Each Other!
Not only these nasty little fish are vicious, but scientists have discovered that those bloody piranhas can talk to each other. They use three sounds, each of them meaning a different thing. One of the sounds is a bark used to intimidate rivals. The other two are drumming songs produced when they attack each other for food. [...]
A new approach to cancer – TEDMED
Danny Hillis, one of America’s brightest engineers, proposes a radical new approach towards treating cancer. Treating cancer like a verb instead of a noun… treating a tumor like it’s a symptom and not the problem. Since religion’s fairy tale gods aren’t doing a damned thing about it… we must.
Walking Fish a Model of Evolution in Action
Sometimes, a fish out of water doesn’t feel like a fish out of water—at least if it’s a Pacific leaping blenny (pictured). For the first time, scientists have closely studied the land-dwelling fish, which hops about the rocky coastlines of Micronesia (see map). The new study revealed that the “walking” fish are amazingly agile on land, where they engage [...]
100 year old time capsule could reveal evolution of bacteria
Way back in 1897, someone from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City buried a time capsule stuffed with bacteria in one of the buildings cornerstones. It was lost for well over a century. But in more recent years, New York University made plans to tear the building down and discovered the long-lost [...]
The Unintelligent Designer
Just a few of the mistakes that wouldn’t have been made by an intelligent designer: 1. Humans have the highest perinatal mortality rate of any of the great apes. Without good medical care, the commonest cause of death in Homo sapiens is child-birth. In the other great apes, perinatal death for mothers and babies is [...]
Science Shows Humans Are Still Evolving
Humans, like all other organisms on Earth, are subject to the pressures of evolution. New research suggests that even in relatively modern societies, humans are still changing and evolving in response to the environment. “Whether humans could or could not evolve in modern times could have interesting implications,” study researcher Emmanuel Milot, of the University of Quebec in Montreal, told LiveScience. [...]
Fish Using Tools
This video, captured by University of California Santa Cruz professor Giacomo Bernardi, shows an orange-dotted tuskfish (Choerodon anchorago) cracking open a clam by throwing it against a rock. Other fish from the wrasse family have also been observed using similar techniques to crack open clams. These include the blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii), yellowhead wrasse (Halichoeres [...]
Origins of Life: Scientists Seek New Answers From Serpentine, California Official State Rock
There is no question in all of science that is more perplexing, and more difficult to answer, than this simple query: How did life on Earth begin? It happened so long ago, when the planet was still in its infancy, that most of the evidence has vanished, leaving scientists with little hope of ever finding [...]
Colors Preserved in Near-Perfect Prehistoric Beetle Fossils
From the fossil pits in Messel, Germany. Approximately 47 million years old. Despite being tens of millions of years old, some beetle fossils appear almost as they did in life. Not only are their shape and structure preserved, but so are the actual colors of their shells, which have changed only slightly in the intervening [...]
