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April 1, 2016
Can You Tell Which Of These Bizarre Science Headlines Was Actually An April Fools’ Joke?
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Foonia/Shutterstock
When it comes to April Fools' day, navigating the Internet can become a chore. Endless stories designed to catch you out, or just make you laugh, by blending fact and fiction.
But this hallowed day can also be a headache for people with somewhat more outlandish research to publish. After all, if you have serious evidence that seems out of this world, who is going to believe you?
So, to help you out, we’ve picked out some of the scientific stories from this week that might seem absurd, but are very much a reality.
Google’s April Fools’ Prank Backfired Spectacularly
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Oops. John T Takai/Shutterstock
April Fools’ jokes are normally a bit of harmless fun. But that doesn’t seem to have been the case for one of Google’s latest pranks.
The Internet giant is known for its numerous annual April Fools’ jokes, but one seems to have failed spectacularly this year. They decided to install a “drop mic” button on Gmail that would send recipients of the email an animated gif of a Minion character “dropping a mic,” ending the email thread and blocking any future emails in the chain.
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Testicles
Photo credit:
Alina Reviakina/Shutterstock
Balls, cojones, nuts, your local sidekicks, bollocks, nads, family jewels – whatever you call them, testicles are very important and so is their well-being. April is Testicular Cancer Awareness Month, so to get into the spirit of all things ballsy, here’s a quick guide on how to keep your balls nice and healthy, along with some facts that show just how special testicles are.
Fossil Friday
From the Devonian limestone of Belgium they came! What tiny fossils are collected here?
A hint to reward you for reading my non-Fossil Friday posts: the person who originally described the species was once called “Roredick” by a Scopes-era creationist.
If you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard or a fully equipped evolutionary genetics laboratory including a thermocycler array, benchtop, plate, and floor centrifuges, a digital imaging system for documenting agarose gels, a Nanodrop spectrophotometer, a Qubit fluorometer, a StepOne Plus real-time instrument, a Bioruptor sonicator, an ABI 3730 48-capillary automated sequencer, and a Kees van der Westen Mirage espresso machine, and mail it to NCSE, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600, Oakland CA 94612. Or just leave a comment below.
The Mask Slips In Louisiana
State Senator Dan Claitor (R–District 16) is leading an effort in Louisiana to repeal various outdated laws on its books. In a recent report on these efforts, there’s an interesting comment from radical cleric Gene Mills. In both the online and print editions of the Baton Rouge Advocate, Mills—head of the state affiliate of Focus on the Family—was asked about Claitor’s bill repeal a 1981 law requiring “balanced treatment” for evolution and creationism. The 1981 law was struck down by the US Supreme Court in 1987’s Edwards v. Aguillard decision, but it was never taken off Louisiana’s books.
Gene Mills, president of the Louisiana Family Forum, said he’s unsure if he will oppose Claitor’s bill this year. He said discussing creationism in the classroom is protected by the Louisiana Science Education Act, a law passed in 2008 that allows teachers to supplement their science instruction with theories that are critical of evolution and global warming.
Now, since the misnamed LSEA was proposed, its advocates have claimed that there was nothing creationist about it, but here Mills seemed to be giving away that game, agreeing that the bill really does protect creationist lessons.
A few hours after that story went online, the passage was revised, switching up the reference to creationism and adding an editor’s note:
Gene Mills, president of the Louisiana Family Forum, said he’s unsure if he will oppose Claitor’s bill this year. He said discussing the weaknesses of the theory of evolution and other scientific theories in the classroom is protected by the Louisiana Science Education Act, a law passed in 2008 that allows teachers to supplement their science instruction with alternative theories. …
Editor’s note: this story has been changed from the original version to reflect that the Louisiana Science Education Act does not expressly protect the discussion of Creationism in the classroom. Instead, it protects the discussion of strengths and weaknesses of any given scientific theory, by allowing teachers to supplement science instruction with theories critical of topics like evolution and global warming.
The editor’s note looks for all the world like a direct quote from an email, either from Mills or even the Disco. ‘tute. To be fair, it isn’t clear whether the revision happened because Mills didn’t actually say “creationism,” or if he just bullied the paper into toning down the story.
Either way, what Mills said undercuts the rhetoric of the law’s defenders, and demonstrates the point critics have been making. Mills appears to feel that the LSEA covers comparable ground to the 1981 law, that “the discussion of strengths and weaknesses” of evolution is the rough equivalent of requiring equal time for creationism.
Indeed, Mills wouldn’t be the first to see things that way. Just after the 1981 law was struck down, Wendell Bird (the general counsel for the Institute for Creation Research who was deputized by the state of Louisiana to defend the “balanced treatment” law) wrote an essay laying out the strategy which ultimately led to the creation of the LSEA:
From Wendell Bird (1987) "The Supreme Court Decision and Its Meaning," ICR Impact #170.
school boards and teachers should be strongly encouraged at least to stress the sciencific [sic] evidences and arguments against evolution in their classes (not just arguments against some proposed evolutionary mechanism, but for creation per se), even if they don’t wish to recognize these as evidence and arguments for creation (not necessarily as arguments for a particular date of creation but for creation per se).
Mills’s comments on repeal of the 1981 law seem to repeat this line of argument, implying that arguments against evolution are de facto arguments for creationism. The anti-evolution lessons the law explicitly protects will have the same effect as the creationist lessons from the 1981 law. And until the legislature acts to repeat the LSEA, the 1981 “balanced treatment” law is far from dead letter.
March 31, 2016
Color Of Extinct Snake Revealed For The First Time
Photo credit:
An artist's impression of the snake in the Colubridae family. Jim Robbins
When we try to picture the ancient world, one thing usually stops us: No matter how much we know about the shape of creatures past, their color is a mystery. Now, the reconstruction of green and black markings on a 10-million-year-old snake opens the door to discovering how other animal species looked as well.
Most Accurate Gorilla Genome Sequenced To Date
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While the gorilla genome was sequenced in 2012, it still had hundreds of thousands of gaps. Sergey Uryadnikov/Shutterstock
While it took over 10 years to fully sequence the human genome, modern technology means it is now much easier to decode the DNA of many other organisms. The information contained within each cell can provide a fascinating glimpse of what makes a species a species. Now researchers have managed to generate the most accurate reading of the gorilla genome, filling in hundreds of thousands of gaps. With this new information, the researchers hope they can meaningfully compare the gorilla genome with that of humans and other apes.
The Ancestor Of Malaria May Have Once Infected Dinosaurs
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The oldest record of the malaria parasite Plasmodium is thought to be in 20-million-year-old amber. George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of Oregon State University
The evolutionary origin of the malaria parasite may be older than anyone thought. A new analysis of a 100-million-year-old insect preserved in amber shows evidence for the oldest ancestral strain of malaria, meaning it likely infected not just the ancestors of mammals, but dinosaurs too.
Young Newts Regenerate Their Limbs Differently Than Adults
Photo credit:
University of Tsukuba
Unlike mammals, a group of salamanders called newts can regenerate their limbs – repeatedly and at any age. According to a new Nature Communications study, adult newts have managed to secure their remarkable regenerative abilities, but they use a different mechanism than young larval newts before metamorphosis. The researchers hope these findings will provide clues for tissue regeneration and wound repair in other species, including ours.
“Hobbits” Disappeared Earlier Than We Thought
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Archaeological excavations in progress at Liang Bua on the Indonesian island of Flores. Liang Bua Team
Fossilized bones and stone artifacts discovered in a limestone cave on the Indonesian island of Flores suggest that Homo floresiensis – an extinct human ancestor nicknamed the Hobbit – may have died off tens of thousands of years earlier than we thought. The findings are published in Nature this week.
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