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The Bermuda Triangle - BBC Video + Info (Part 1)

February 20, 2007

'The Bermuda Triangle: Beneath the Waves' - An online BBC Television Documentary which includes a dramatic re-enactment of the disappearance of 'Flight 19' (see 'info') and appearances by Richard Winer and Phil Beck.

"..Over the last century a thousand ships have been reported lost without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle. Using state-of-the-art technology, we're going to unlock one of the Ocean's deepest secrets..."

[Updated February 27th: Info (Part 2) now available]

Goblin Shark: Rare Video of a 'Living fossil'

February 10, 2007

Rare video of a Goblin Shark caught in Tokyo Bay plus info and link to video of equally 'prehistoric' Frilled Shark.

The Mystery of the Human Hobbit: BBC Horizon Video 2005

January 30, 2007

BBC Horizon Video (running time: 49 mins) plus recent (Jan. 2007) news - "Anthropologist confirms 'Hobbit' a separate species" - and further reading: "What is a Hobbit?"

Intelligent Design Video: 'Unlocking the Mystery of Life'

January 17, 2007

'Unlocking the Mystery of Life' - The scientific case for Intelligent Design:

"Time, chance, and natural selection. Since Darwin, biologists have relied on such processes to account for the origin of living things. Yet today, this approach is being challenged as never before..."

Intelligent Design: 'A War on Science' (BBC Horizon Video - 49 mins)

January 13, 2007

BBC Horizon's 'A War on Science' looks into the attempt to introduce ID into science classes in the US.

(Originally broadcast on BBC Two at 2100GMT on Thursday, 26 January 2006)

Talking Fish: Wide Variety of Sounds Discovered

January 1, 2007

Increasingly scientists are discovering unusual mechanisms by which fish make and hear secret whispers, grunts and thumps to attract mates and ward off the enemy.

...Currently the purposes of some fish sounds remain complete mysteries...

The Eocene Epoch: Ancient insects used advanced camouflage

December 29, 2006

A fossil of a leaf-imitating insect from 47 million years ago bears a striking resemblance to the mimickers of today.

The discovery represents the first fossil of a leaf insect (Eophyllium messelensis), and also shows that leaf imitation is an ancient and successful evolutionary strategy that has been conserved over a relatively long period of time.

Evolution: Winning by a neck - Giraffes avoid competition

December 22, 2006

The giraffe's elongated neck has long been used in textbooks as an illustration of evolution by natural selection, but this common example has received very little experimental attention...

Oldest animal fossils may have been Giant Bacteria

December 20, 2006

The oldest-known animal eggs and embryos, whose first pictures made the cover of Nature in 1998, were so small they looked like bugs - which, it now appears, they may have been.

This week, a study in the same prestigious journal presents evidence for reinterpreting the 600 million-year-old fossils from the Precambrian era as giant bacteria.

Tarbosaurus: Rare dinosaur fossil unearthed by Korea-led team

December 19, 2006

Korea: "An international team supported by the Gyeonggi provincial government has excavated a rare dinosaur fossil in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia...

This is the first time that an entire fossil of the Tarbosaurus, which lived during the Cretaceous** period of the Mesozoic era about 80 million years ago, has been found."

Extremophile Fish dance on sulphur cauldrons (+Video)

December 17, 2006

Scientists have witnessed the extreme lifestyle of tonguefish that like to skip across pools of molten sulphur (sulfur).

The animals - a type of flatfish - were filmed on three expeditions to undersea volcanoes in the western Pacific.

Huge numbers were seen to congregate around the sulphur ponds which well up from beneath the seafloor.

Researchers from the University of Victoria, Canada, are trying to work out how the creatures survive in such a hostile environment.

Congress slams Smithsonian's anti-religious attacks

December 16, 2006

"A new report from the U.S. House of Representatives has condemned officials at the Smithsonian Institution for imposing a religious test on scientists who work there. And it suggests their attacks on a scientist who just edited an article on intelligent design are just the tip of the iceberg of an industry-wide fear of anything that suggests man might not have come from a puddle of sludge."

Discovery backs Theory Life began in Ocean Deeps

December 16, 2006

A heat-loving archaeon capable of fixing nitrogen at a surprisingly hot 92 degrees Celsius, or 198 Fahrenheit, may represent Earth's earliest lineages of organisms capable of nitrogen fixation, perhaps even preceding the kinds of bacteria today's plants and animals rely on to fix nitrogen.

What Is the Hobbit?

December 15, 2006

"Who - or what - is Homo floresiensis? (Wiki) The tiny hominid bones, which a joint Australian-Indonesian team unearthed in 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores, have quickly become as celebrated (and derided) as any find in the tempestuous history of human paleontology. The mystery that shrouds these ancient skeletons, nicknamed hobbits after the diminutive characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels, seems to deepen with every study published."

Dover: 'Intelligent design' ruling relied too much on plaintiffs

December 13, 2006

Since the Kitzmiller vs. Dover decision was issued, Judge Jones' 139-page judicial opinion has been lavished with praise as a "masterful decision" based on careful and independent analysis of the evidence. However, a new analysis of the text of the Kitzmiller decision reveals that nearly all of Judge Jones' lengthy examination of "whether ID is science" came not from his own efforts or analysis but from wording supplied by ACLU attorneys.



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