News to Note, June 20, 2009

1. Another Evolutionary Flap

Last week we reported on a solid scientific study that dismissed dinosaur-to-bird evolution. Of course, some researchers have yet to catch on.

2. Rip van Microbe

After tens of thousands of years trapped in ice, an ancient species “wakes up.” Is it science news or the plot of a low-budget movie?

3. Leaning Tower of Planet Formation

A planet with a “steeply tilted” orbit—will it help refine theories of planetary formation or reveal their flaws?

4. Genius Fish

Chimpanzees, dolphins, crows: out o’ the way! There’s a new “genius animal” in the spotlight.

Stickleback fish have been featured in News to Note before: on May 24 and September 6 of last year, along with a brief mention this past February. Each of those times the stickleback were allegedly providing an example of “evolution.”

5. BBC News: “Who Goes to a Creationist Museum?”

Just a few weeks after the Creation Museum’s second anniversary, the BBC asks, “So who goes to America’s biggest and best attended creationist museum and why?” (We could have answered, but they didn’t ask us!)

6. And Don’t Miss . . .

• Woolly mammoths survived in Britain until up to 14,000 years ago. But wait—that’s outside the timeline of history the Bible gives. Don’t worry, this is the “new” date based on a new method of removing contamination to allow radiocarbon dating. Yet, in noting the fallibility of one “old” method of radiocarbon dating, scientists remind us that all radiometric dating rests on fallible assumptions.
• ScienceNOW tells how a single genetic change may lead one bird species to become two. Rather than confirming evolution, this example of rapid speciation explains how we could see so much biodiversity in the 4,400 years since the Flood.
• An intriguing design—found in both animals and plants.
• WorldNetDaily does a nice job reviewing some of the findings in one of our newest resources, Already Gone.
• Fingerprints: an “evolutionary mystery”?
• It isn’t a dinosaur-bird, but the “parrot reptile of the Gobi” does look like it might have been designed to do something similar to what modern parrots do.
• “Examples of same-sex behavior can be found in almost all species in the animal kingdom,” reports LiveScience. First, as we’ve said before, there are many animal behaviors humans should not normalize. Second, the same-sex behaviors are often associated with “missing genes” (such as in fruit flies) or are “costly” behaviors (such as in locusts).
• A defensive behavior that causes worms to escape the ground whenever they detect what could be an approaching mole. But natural selection could explain the pervasiveness of such behavior—no evolution needed.